Research Bulletin

Research Bulletin

Volume XXI Spring/Summer 2016 Volume XXI • Number 1 • Number 1 Research Institute for Waldorf Education

RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR WALDORF PUBLICATIONS at the RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR WALDORF EDUCATION 38 Main Street Chatham, NY 12037 EDUCATIONWaldorf Table of Contents

From the Editor Elan Leibner...... 3

The Significance of Play in Evolution Bernd Rosslenbroich...... 4

Developing Hybrid Minds: The Future Will Belong to the Nature-Smart Richard Louv ...... 23

Anthroposophy and Waldorf Education – A Dynamic Relationship Jost Schieren ...... 28

Waldorf Teachers – Artists or Mooncalves? Parzival and the New Knowledge Norman Skillen ...... 40

Core Principles of Waldorf Education: A Contribution to the Study of Core Principle #6 Judy Lucas ...... 48

A Contribution to the Study of Core Principle #7 Frances Vig...... 55

Report from the Online Waldorf Library Marianne Alsop...... 59

Report from Waldorf Publications Patrice Maynard ...... 60

Research Opportunities...... 61

About the Research Institute for Waldorf Education...... 62

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 From the Editor

Elan Leibner

ear Readers, world, yet the questions he raises and the This issue of the Research Bulletin brings approach he offers are both relevant to the wider Dtogether a number of articles that ponder the discussion about this important question. work of the educator from somewhat more Norman Skillen writes about the story of distant vantage points than those of recent Parzival as an example of a new way of knowing . issues . He describes Gawain and Parzival as each Our lead article, by Bernd Rosslenbroich, bridging, from opposite starting points, the gap is offered here courtesy of the Medical Section between Love and Reason and suggests that at the Goetheanum . It is a look at play as a therein lies a key challenge for Waldorf teachers phenomenon in animals and humans, as well as everywhere . an evolutionary manifestation of an increasing Schieren’s and Skillen’s contributions level of autonomy. Beautifully illustrated, it appeared originally in the online publication provides a thoughtful treatment of a behavior RoSE, or Research on Steiner/Waldorf Education that seems strangely out of place if one takes a (rosejourn .com) . This is a peer-reviewed, traditional evolutionary perspective. While longer academic publication originating in Europe, and a than our usual articles, it is rewarding reading worthwhile resource for those seeking academic that will leave the reader looking at child play research and perspectives on Waldorf education. with “new eyes.” Rosslenbroich also offers an From the Pedagogical Section Council’s intriguing possibility for viewing certain natural Judy Lucas and Frances Vig come the final two phenomena as nature’s own “play ”. contributions to the ongoing series supporting Celebrated author Richard Louv, of Last Child the Council’s “Core Principles of Waldorf in the Woods renown, is writing about nature Education” document. They look at the principles as a powerful incubator of creativity and as the of Relationships (#6) and Spiritual Orientation ideal complement to technology . He proposes (#7). The whole series was a response to requests that a new, hybrid mind that can incorporate for guidance in the study of this document, and both nature wisdom and technological acumen we hope that it has been able to achieve its will become the most sought-after kind of mind purpose . in the decades ahead . He is scheduled to have Reports from Waldorf Publications and the his new book, Vitamin N, published in April, and Online Waldorf Library can be found at the end of we are pleased to host his first contribution to the issue . the Research Bulletin in close proximity to this Happy readings! occasion . Jost Schieren, a frequent contributor to our Bulletin and a trustee of the Research Institute for Authors who wish to have articles considered Waldorf Education, writes about the relationship for publication in the Research Bulletin between anthroposophy and Waldorf education. should submit them directly to the Editor at: Schieren’s perspective is profoundly informed by [email protected]. the European, and particularly German, academic

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 TheArticle Significance Title of Play in Evolution

Bernd Rosslenbroich

“ an only plays when in the full meaning of of their environment or of possible predators . the word he is a man, and he is only completely With play fighting, there is the danger of injury. Ma man when he plays ”. This famous statement Animals use valuable time for these activities, by Friedrich Schiller (On the Aesthetic Education which clearly are not required for survival, being of Man, 1794, quoted from BrainyQuote.com) focused as they are on activities that serve no is in some ways a riddle . Does man not have discernible purpose . more important things to do than, of all things, Often the assertion is made that movement play? What significance does it have that Schiller and behavior patterns are practiced during play, attributes such an important role to play? He which are needed later for the serious tasks of specifically relates humankind to play. Should life, such as catching prey, fighting with rivals, and play not be relegated a peripheral role to more so forth . This could be true: A few studies have important and serious activities, such as taking shown that animals with ample opportunity to care of daily needs or the development of play were later more skilled in these respects . prosperity, culture, and technology? Many more such studies, however, were unable In the following, first there will be a to demonstrate this at all . Animals that were able description of play in the animal world. Which to play only a little gained the necessary skills in animals play, when and how do animals play? other ways. (Bateson & Martin 2013) Then the significance of play in the human In the evolutionary comparison the question context will be explored. And finally, a thesis will remains: Why should it be necessary at all, in be formulated on the possible significance of play the case of higher animals, to practice these in evolution. important patterns of behavior? The rest of the animal kingdom manages without practicing Play in Behavioral Science in play . The behaviors required for survival are Study of the behavior of animals when inborn and proceed more or less as fixed instincts playing belongs to the domain of behavioral (so-called “fixed action patterns” or FAPs), which science, but if one looks more closely at seems much more sensible, because the behavior interpretations of the biological aspect of play, patterns are instantly available when they are they do not adequately address this remarkable needed . If, on the other hand, they need to be phenomenon . Play seems pointless and practiced first, much can go wrong. A frog does redundant where “the survival of the fittest” not need to practice catching a fly; he can just do is concerned. Repeatedly the attempt is made it. Why do many adult animals play even though to give play an adaptive or fitness-developing they already possess all the skills required? role, which however hasn’t really succeeded in Here even the usual cost-benefit calculations fail explaining it. (Bateson & Martin 2013) completely . Play uses energy, thus costs valuable Behavioral scientists are aware of this resources, but does not provide nourishment . It problem of interpretation, and play is perceived is dangerous, as playing animals are barely aware as being as much a riddle as before . Burghardt ______(1998: 3) says: “The origins of vertebrate play are Translation by Astrid Klee obscure ”. Play is even described as a “biological

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Bernd Rosslenbroich • 5

paradox ”. (Fagen 1986: VII) “Animal play behavior and in the process reduce them to little pieces. In addresses a major biological paradox. Why movement games they stand on their heads, do do young and old animals of many species somersaults, land the wrong way, use branches as spend time and energy, and even risk physical swings, and make snowballs with which they then injury, performing the apparently unproductive play . behaviors colloquially called play? What makes A number of film teams have had the rubber this useless activity so important that animals seals removed from their cars, and no backpack literally risk their lives for it? And, even more is safe from their attention. It has even occurred curiously, why are humans both enchanted and that film equipment is dismantled before the enraged by play?” team has had a chance to make any recordings . Many popular textbooks on behavioral These birds also love to let the air out of car tires. research in animals and on the evolutionary Filmmakers Hans Schweiger and Ernst Arendt psychology of humans omit the topic completely, have captured this performance on film. They talk thus simply avoiding the issue . This applies of the keas’ “highly developed sense of nonsense: especially to books that are heavily adaptation- [T]hey played tricks on us, and we were not orientated . always sure who was observing A few books based on recent Today it is known whom ”. behavioral research describe the that all mammals On the other hand, other phenomenon comprehensively . play more or less vertebrates, such as reptiles and (Fagen 1981, Bekoff & Byers 1998, intensively. amphibians, as a rule, do not play . Burghardt 2005, Bateson & Martin There are some notable exceptions. 2013) Here the observations, There have been reports of komodo assessment, and analysis of play are at the dragons in captivity playing. It is possible to view forefront, even if no clarity about its evolutionary a dragon playing on the internet (fig. 5) .* Turtles meaning can be gained: Play seems to be in captivity have been documented playing with absolutely illogical—but somehow fascinating. a ball, a stick, or the hose in their pool. There are descriptions of fish displaying play-like behavior. Which Animals Play? (Burghardt 2005) It is quite possible that future Today it is known that all mammals play observations will yield other surprising results. more or less intensively (figs.1–3). With many Perhaps play, in other forms than those observed mammals, play behavior is limited to the in mammals and birds, is more widely spread young . In the case of others, it can survive into than is commonly assumed . adulthood, especially in predators, rodents, Among invertebrates play apparently does primates, and whales . Adult dolphins, for not occur . But even here there is at least one example, can be remarkably playful . Among bird exception, namely that of the ordinary octopus species it is mainly the crow types that play . Many (Octopus vulgaris), which in captivity displays parrots also play . And there have been reports of great curiosity and after finding interesting falcons and some small songbirds playing . objects also plays with them. (Kuba 2006) The keas (Nestor notabilis), especially, are infamous for their boisterous play behavior (fig. What Is Play? 4) . They live in the mountains of New Zealand Play is understood to consist of any where they survive in a habitat, which, for a movement, manipulation of an object, or social parrot, is unusually harsh . They use everything to interaction which occurs outside the context of play and can become a nuisance when they use ______the antennas on houses as gymnastics apparatus *http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=almJghl1VXk

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 6 • The Significance of Play in Evolution

Fig. 1: Cats playing Fig. 2: A bonobo mother playing with her child (from Burghard) an actual problem . Play is behavior unrelated to The Emergence of Autonomy in Evolution an immediate need or demand, and within this It is possible to integrate the phenomenon of autonomous situation it contains a high level of play behavior into an understanding of evolution flexibility. Play behavior is typically spontaneous, if it is considered in the context of research on voluntary, and intentional. It is obviously amusing the autonomy theory of evolution. (Rosslenbroich and pleasant, and the animals enjoy it . 2006, 2007, 2012, 2014) According to this theory, Typically play occurs in a so-called “relaxed the evolution of animals and humans did not field,” which means only once physical needs occur simply as a result of adaptations, but have been met . Animals will play only if they rather as the expression of increased individual are healthy, have enough food, and don’t feel autonomy during the course of major transitions threatened . in evolution. These transitions included the One can roughly divide play among animals emancipation from immediate environmental into locomotor play, predatory games, object factors, the increase in inner stability, the play, and social play . Burghardt (2005) adds adjustability of bodily functions, and also an another category for the keas: “demolishing play ”. increase of behavioral flexibility within the Play consists of the normal components of environment . behavior available to each kind of animal, such as It has been shown that the principle of running, climbing, object manipulation, hunting, decoupling is of decisive importance for the and many more . In play these are fragmented, evolution of nervous systems. In the simple repeated, exaggerated, and combined in new nervous systems of lower animals, a stimulus is ways to achieve a high level of flexibility. instantly followed by a reaction. The stimulus, which is perceived by sensory cells, and the Forms of play: reaction are functionally close. With the In animals: locomotor play, predatory development of complex nervous systems, more games, object play, social play neurons are included between stimulus and In children (based on Smith 2010): response. This enables reactions to be modulated locomotor play, object play, social play, word by varying degrees, so that they no longer have play, activity play, fantasy, make believe, to follow directly, but can be self-determined in games with rules, role play many ways. This ability to modulate is initially small, but is increased with the development of

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Bernd Rosslenbroich • 7

Fig. 4: A playing kea

Fig. 3: Panda bears playing on a slide

with the increased ability to learn, the increased potential for imitation, and the solving of problems . This flexibility can then be increased in such a way that it becomes an undirected end in itself, which is a prerequisite for play . In this sense, play contains a degree of freedom and can be related to other tendencies in the emergence of autonomy in evolution. It represents the next stage of development among comparable self- determining and autonomous animals . This flexibility, however, does not occur only in the capacity of the nervous system . It is Fig. 5: A komodo dragon in a zoo in Florida . The dragon also typical that a high degree of flexibility and plays with a ring, which is held by the caregiver . (drawn from a video image at http://www.youtube.com/watch? certain diversity in movement become possible: v=almJghl1VXk) Many mammals perform highly complex and downright acrobatic movements during play, though of course these are strongly dependent larger brains and centralized nervous system . As on the constitution of the animal in question. a result, behavior becomes more flexible, self- It then follows logically that the common determined, and autonomous . octopus is capable of displaying play behavior . Play behavior occurs only in animals that Among invertebrates it is the animal with the have the most extensively formed central most concentrated central nervous system and nervous systems, which means also those that multiplicity of arms (eight of them) that make it are the most intelligent . These are the animals astonishingly mobile . that develop the most flexibility in their behavior During play, movements are “re-invented,” and are thus the least determined with respect and behaviors or fragments of behavior occur to their behavior . This occurs to a limited extent which could be meaningful in other contexts—for­ in animals; most behavior, even among more example, flight, attack, or prey-capture actions. In evolved animals, is determined more or less by instinct. However, the degree of flexibility in ______behavior can be significantly increased, together Drawings by Marita Rosslenbroich

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 8 • The Significance of Play in Evolution

play they can be combined in new and versatile reminiscent of our extensive human behavioral ways, so that they can be individually shaped and flexibility. Eibl-Eibesfeldt (1999: 416) wrote: therefore become very different. The time during which young birds and Because in play the activities can be distanced mammals are looked after by their parents from the normally pre-determined instances provides opportunities for the young to play. (urges), the animal creates a relaxed field During this time they are relatively independent and is able to experiment with possible of the struggle for survival . movements and to interact dialogically with his However, there is a more mental form of environment . This ability to distance himself flexibility in this equation: Play contains modes stands at the root of what we perceive as the of behavior that are feigned—for example, mock particularly human freedom of action. fighting. In this situation, the animals have to be able to feign behavior and also to recognize If one takes into account the emergence of feigned behavior in their game partner . The autonomy in the course of evolution, then the animal needs to show the play partner that the development of play is no longer a paradox, but actions are “only” a game. In the case of dogs this instead can actually be expected to be part of the is shown in the well-known bow, in which they go sequence of evolutionary transitions. down on their front legs while keeping their back legs straight . Play in Humans In animals it has often been observed that “Pretend play” is especially characteristic a game partner who, compared to the other of humans . This ability starts to develop at animal, is more powerful or dominant, holds back about the age of 2 and then is carried out (“self-handicapping”), as if to make the game extensively over many years . A prerequisite for fair . This requires a certain this is the separation of two degree of cognitive ability and Play is … any movement, participating representations in this respect may be related manipulation of an object, within consciousness: In to the capacity of the central or social interaction which the case of objects, there is nervous system . occurs outside the context the image of the object that “Individualized” games of an actual problem. [It corresponds to reality and have been described, is] typically spontaneous, then the fantasy version of especially among primates, in the same object (the bathtub which there are even fewer voluntary, and intentional. as a “ship,” the “cake” in narrowly predetermined the sandpit) . In the case of sequences of behavior . If play in any way has the activities, one has to distinguish between the character of practice, then the modes of behavior action that relates to the real experience of resulting from it later are also definitely more oneself and the action that is played, which is individual. These “creative components” allow for clearly experienced as “just a game ”. In older the formation of very individualized abilities or children (ages 6–8), this form of pretend play habits . can be completely decoupled from objects, body It is remarkable that play always elicits happy parts, and other people (e .g ., drinking from a interest in people. Who hasn’t been captivated cup or combing hair without having anything by the boisterous play of young cats or dogs? in the hand; playing with an imaginary friend Many pets are played with, and to watch animals and acting out a pretend action together). This playing is always an aesthetic experience. Play decoupling represents a more developed act of among animals touches us like this because it is consciousness and lies at the origin of a self-

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Bernd Rosslenbroich • 9

conscious inner life . Insofar as playing animals can comes about. Now motifs that are decoupled distinguish play from reality, one must assume from each other can be contemplated . All these that for them there is also a certain rudimentary capacities can be involved in the various forms of decoupling of these two representations. In the games . case of the great apes, there have even been This results, on the one hand, in the individual cases described where pretend actions possibility of fantasy play and, on the other, in are separated from objects, although only seldom exercising a dynamic flexibility when it comes to and only in cases where the animals are in the dealing with imaginations, memories, and ideas care of humans . (Smith 2010) by means of fantasy games . In the case of humans, the possibilities In fantasy games new ideas or “hypotheses” for decoupling obviously go far beyond what arise that are then explored, contemplated, and is possible with animals . Humans can isolate developed further . The possible consequences contents of consciousness so removed from are “played out” before ideas are rejected or sensory impressions or actual experiences accepted and put into practice. The process is that they can be symbolically brought into thus closely related to every form of planning consciousness . As a result they can be generated and design . New concepts, ideas, sequences, flexibly and developed further. These symbolic and chronological orders are thus formed and representations then become the foundations reflected on independently of time and space. for self-awareness and awareness of the other Fantasy games are therefore a basis and training person as someone capable of consciousness, of ground for the development of creativity. empathy, and finally of language, which in the (Bateson & Martin 2013, Nowell 2014) current form is symbolic language . (Carruthers Of all humans children certainly play the 2001, Smith 2010, Rosslenbroich 2014) most, but adults also play . In this case games are Gärdenfors (2003) distinguishes often formalized and subjected representations that are elicited These symbolic to a whole variety of rules—for directly by a signal (“cued representations instance, in games of sport . The representations”) from others then become the boisterous romping and tussling that are detached (“detached foundations for of young children is rare among representations”). He divides self-awareness and adults but is taken up happily the latter again into “dependent awareness of the when interacting with children. representations,” which depend other, of empathy, When adults want to tussle, they on outer perceptions, even if sometimes give themselves a the stimulant is not directly and… of language. complicated system of rules, such present, and “independent as is found in judo, which is then representations,” which are not based on outer also placed on a higher cultural level . Games perceptions at all, such as in the case of fantasy. can be highly abstract, such as chess, although According to his theory, this sequence follows movement games are also enjoyed at every age . the order in which these abilities evolved (cued By these means our highly dynamic and extensive representations → dependent representations → repertoire of movements is continually combined independent representations). The development and varied in new ways . In other games, rules and of thought can be described as the differentiation agreements are determined, such as in hide-and- of more and more representations. When a seek or in ball games. This relationship of fantasy variety of representations can be inwardly and movement shows that neural processes are reflected upon—therefore also a number of ways always closely connected to the processes in the to achieve a given goal—the possibility of choice body as a whole, and that the origin of emerging

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 10 • The Significance of Play in Evolution

flexibility cannot be sought in the brain alone. extended times of maturation, the activities of (Fuchs 2009) the prefrontal cortex display especially marked Games can develop considerable importance development . (Case & al . 2000, Neubauer & for societal life. The Soccer World Cup of 2006 Hublin 2012) The prefrontal cortex is connected had the dual function of allowing Germany to with abilities such as attentiveness, memory, present itself as a modern and hospitable nation, logical thought, and planning—i .e ., higher mental and in this way clear away reservations that functions and flexible associations. (Neubert & visitors might have retained due to Germany’s al. 2014) It thus suggests that play influences the history . However, events can take on a life of maturation and formation of pathways in these their own, which is also seen in soccer, where the areas . identification of a people with the game is abused And yet our synapses and pathways develop for profit. later than those of, for example, chimpanzees . It is clear that play is fundamental to our They emerge during early childhood and humanity. There are similarities in some animals, increase as a result of our experiences, thereby but play does not have the considerably enhancing same importance for any Play encompasses an our plasticity. In the case other living beings as it does extensive part of human of chimpanzees, many for humans . This is true not culture; through it, we connections are already fixed only during childhood and cultivate our autonomy at birth. We have 98.8% of the adolescence . Play encompasses and flexibility. same genes as chimpanzees, an extensive part of human but it is clearly an important culture. From card games to athletics, from difference that the gene expression connected gymnastics or high diving through to the Olympic to the formation of synapses is delayed. In the games, we cultivate our autonomy and flexibility. case of apes, this stops at about birth . In the case of humans, it continues for about five years, and Extended Adolescence in some areas for much longer . However, new Humans enjoy an exceptionally long period synapses are not always simply being formed . of childhood development (Kipp 1980), in which Rather, it is the case that, to begin, an excess of there is much latitude for the development of synapses and neural pathways are formed, and the “relaxed field.” In anthropology there are only those that are used then stabilize . Pathways two phases that in comparison to primates are that have not been stabilized regress . (Casey & very extended (Nowell 2014) . First, there is the al . 2000, Liu & al . 2012) Humans take much more toddler phase, which lasts from post-weaning time to complete this process. Especially during to the cutting of the first molars, or a period of this time, if fortunate enough to be protected, approximately four years . These years enable there is an inordinate amount and intensity of the child to have additional experiences in play, which is not evidenced in animals . (Smith behavior, which considerably extend plasticity 2010) in development . Second comes the period of Research on animals has shown that adolescence, from puberty to the end of bodily experiences made during play have a substantial growth. This allows for an additional period of influence on the formation of synapses and learning, practice, and transmission, but also for neural pathways . For example, young laboratory the modification and individualization of cultural rats were raised in three categories: The animals ability in particular. in the first group had only one playmate; in the Studies using functional magnetic resonance second group they had more . Each animal in the tomography have shown that, during these third group had its mother for company and thus

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Bernd Rosslenbroich • 11

there was not much impulse for play, as adult rats the premise that social and cultural behavior do not play with their young. An investigation of in principle remains changeable . One could the brains showed that there were substantial say with only minor exaggeration that play has differences in the formation of the prefrontal a subversive character, because what people cortex, with clearly fewer pathways in the animals practice in play can in principle also be changed. that had only played a little or not at all. (Pellis & Perhaps this is a reason why some educational Pellis 2009) The authors concluded that “not only systems try to suppress play in children . The does the brain form play, but games also form excessively strict raising and education of children the brain.” They even compared such deficits in some Asian countries, especially China, leaves with cases where pathological damage to the no room for play, and in this way may suppress prefrontal cortex could be observed . contrariness, resistance, and social autonomy . One can assume that this is also the case in Here in Germany we too need to examine humans . Added to this is the development of the consequences of schools allowing ever less more flexible motor skills, which also have to time for free play: When lessons extend well be trained as practicing skills. But the decisive into late afternoon and are then followed by factor is the training of motor homework, there is virtually and neural flexibility, the ability The same cognitive no time left for free play. Add to react to situations and tasks resources involved in to the shrinking time for play with independence, creativity, make-believe games the flooding onto the market of and versatility. The same among children make “toys” that leave no space for cognitive resources involved possible creative fantasy-filled, self-determined in make-believe games among thinking and planning play . The space to create one’s children make possible creative in adults. Both involve own play is filled with surrogates, thinking and planning in adults . experimentation with such as computer games, which, Both involve experimentation according to psychological with imagined possibilities and imagined possibilities studies, have a negative impact assumptions. (Carruthers 2002) and assumptions. and cannot replace free, Children practice social skills physical play . in this way . However, this is not about learning Author Susanne Gaschke of the German particular rules of behavior in dealing with each weekly newspaper Die Zeit, has written other, but instead concerns the ability to react to extensively about the situation of children in relevant individual situations. Social interactions modern times. She asks the question: “Are we are, after all, nowadays less determined by at the moment raising the most uncreative particular codes of behavior; instead each generation of all time?” The deprivation of play, instance needs to be approached flexibly, and she writes, may be a substantial contributing individual situations need to be adjusted. It is factor: thus often easier for adults to build up contacts and befriend each other while participating in Cultural scientists view … unstructured play play or sport . Children in the same way learn to in children as the initial step for the later interact flexibly with the cultural structures of cultural achievements of adults: Jumping their environment: Whereas in former times they and rough-and-tumble become dance and played with horse and wagon or with tin soldiers, sport, playing with building blocks develops today they play with cars . into art and architecture, role play becomes The fact that this skill is acquired by means literature and theatre. Will children whose of a highly flexible form of learning supports “middle childhood” has been abbreviated,

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 12 • The Significance of Play in Evolution

still be able to develop the problem solving satisfying, it is easier to learn. This obvious ability and creativity which a modern, highly- intuitive insight has been confirmed in complex society requires from its citizens, comparative trials and been proven neuro- employees, entrepreneurs, artists, researchers, physiologically . (Nowell 2014) and politicians? We are in the middle of a Perhaps it is important that during the long-term experiment, of which we will know course of our lives we continue to play. George the results only in decades to come . (Gaschke Bernard Shaw wrote: “We don’t stop playing 2011) because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.” (Bateson & Martin 2013:5) Newest Other authors also see grave consequences findings indicate that the structure of synaptic flowing from the fact that children have ever connections remains extremely flexible and fewer experiences of free play with other changeable throughout life . Neuweiler (2006, children . The psychologist Peter Gray (2011, 2008) demonstrates that, in contrast to the 2013) postulates that the decrease in such earlier image of a stable contact point between experiences contributes to the increase in neurons, another picture of a very dynamic anxiety, depression, suicide, feelings structure has now been developed . of helplessness, and narcissism Extensive play The connections can change within in children, adolescents, and could indeed a very short time, and as a result young adults . Free play acts as a be seen as the brain is a flexible network medium through which children and its behavior can be measured develop autonomous interests and the medium or predicted only in restrictive competency . It promotes the ability that makes conditions. Today it is also ever to make decisions, solve problems, possible societal clearer, from a neuro-physiological develop self-control, and regulate development, point of view, that the brain, even emotions, as well the ability to innovation, and our physiology as a whole, contains find friends, get along with others, creativity. the possibility to continue to support and experience happiness . Brown learning and to form new nerve & Vaughn (2011) are of the opinion that play cells and new synaptic connections well into old stimulates imaginative ability, “strengthens age. (Robson 2013) We have a highly developed the soul,” and makes life more fulfilled and neural flexibility that clearly contradicts the meaningful. It strengthens emotional and physical widely held view of neuro-genetic determinism. health in children and adults and preserves (Gilbert 2000) curiosity and flexibility. Friedrich Nietzsche (1886) wrote: “A man’s Extensive play could indeed be seen as maturity: that is to have rediscovered the the medium that makes possible societal seriousness he possessed as a child at play ”. development, innovation, and creativity. Play Dutch cultural historian Johan Huizinga also brings about a reality of its own: one of (1939) even developed a philosophy according to possibilities. Only a societal establishment that which humans develop their abilities especially has no interest in this will try to suppress play through play (Homo ludens = playing man). Man or make it alien . Even the disciplines of sport discovers his individual characteristics in play and are institutionalized, formalized, or used for thus develops according to these experiences commercial purposes to such an extent that they into what he is . Play is seen as a prerequisite for risk losing their actual play character . freedom of action and individual thought. His Play can also have a general effect on concept of play is, however, rather broad and learning. When something is pleasant and therefore tends to become imprecise .

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Bernd Rosslenbroich • 13

We live in a society that is based on developed independently of their immediate competitiveness, rivalry, and efficiency and is usefulness and are thus closely connected with ideologically supported by a theory of evolution play . that is one-sidedly focused on selection. Play has A creative person discards established an ever-smaller role in this story of evolution. patterns. He breaks through rules and laws. He Parents and schools are ever more focused on observes new relationships between thoughts, preparing their children for the demands of a things, or forms of expression which previously meritocracy and planning their time according seemed to have no relationship. He is able to to this goal. Play becomes a superfluous waste connect them in new ways, just as movements or of time—occasionally needed, but otherwise thoughts can be constantly recombined during unimportant . Engagement with available media play. This unlocks possibilities that were not does the rest, offering a perverted version of play present before, without regard to whether they cut off from any social context involving close are justifiable or worthwhile. contact with others, of movement, and of sensory History is full of highly creative people who experience of the world . Even in the case of also displayed a certain playfulness . Mozart is sport, which after all can be seen certainly a good example of as a form of play, the principles New ways of behaving, this, and his playfulness is also of a meritocratic society and new activities, new evident in his music, even to competitive thinking have been physical or spoken the point of regular musical imported into the game, so jokes . Picasso was known for that the actual nature of play is forms of expression, his playfulness . M C. . Escher said thereby lost . and new ways of himself that he loved to play of thinking are with certainties, perspective, Creativity often developed and spatial directions. This is Bateson and Martin (2013) independently of their how his pictures of impossible make an interesting distinction immediate usefulness stairs and streams originated . between creativity and and are thus closely The philosopher of science, innovation. Creativity, from connected with play. Thomas Kuhn, compared their point of view, describes scientific work with play. the general development of Certainly this does not apply new ideas or new ways of acting, independent generally, but even among scientists there of a practical value or use. Innovation on the are ample examples . Alexander Fleming, the other hand describes the change in a practical discoverer of penicillin, was known for his procedure, which is then also taken up by playfulness . His boss wrote disparagingly that he others. Innovation develops something new that conducted research as if it were a game and that is useful. Bateson and Martin discovered that he viewed everything as a big joke. When Fleming creative people are not necessarily innovative, was asked what he was doing, he would say that and that innovative people often pick up ideas he was playing with microbes . It was amusing that were developed by creative people. to him to break the rules and to find something In this sense creativity is something more all- that no one had ever thought of before . Max encompassing and more closely related to play, Delbrück, one of the founders of modern in that it is primarily independent of usefulness molecular biology and Nobel laureate, formulated and application. New ways of behaving, new a “principle of moderate slovenliness”: One activities, new physical or spoken forms of should be careless enough in the laboratory expression, and new ways of thinking are often to allow the unexpected to occur, but not so

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 14 • The Significance of Play in Evolution

careless that one can no longer say what it was . (examples from Bateson & Martin 2013) Play can also be completely internalized . We speak of make-believe games, for which one should perhaps allow more time than our acquired craze for efficiency allows. This must have been one of the components in the early Fig. 6: Skull of Homo neanderthalensis (left) and Homo development of Albert Einstein . (Isaacson 2010) sapiens (Cro-Magnon, right) . Especially compare the As a child Einstein took a long time to learn to formation of the forehead. speak—so long that his parents consulted with a doctor, and the maidservant called him “the dimwit.” His independent disposition and his does a field of gravity look like? Most of all he resistance to authority, according to his own was enough of a rebel to question every finding, conviction, contributed to his scientific creativity. no matter how self-evident it was. He always The fact that he took so long to learn to speak proclaimed that the foolish belief in authority was was because he thought in pictures rather than in the enemy of truth . words . He loved his visual “thought experiments ”. What we would call daydreaming an Einstein Early Hominids would call thought experiments . Through studies on fossil finds of early Most of his great scientific achievements hominids, such as Neanderthals or Homo erectus, arose from such imaginary adventures: How it can be shown that these hominids had a would a light source look if one could walk next shorter physical developmental phase than Homo to it at the same speed? If a person on a station sapiens . This could be discovered especially from platform sees two flashes of lighting at the same comparing the growth of teeth . The adolescents time, would another person in a train passing by reached adulthood significantly sooner. By also see them simultaneously? Would someone comparison, there was a slowing-down and an standing in a closed elevator that is going up extension of maturity in H. sapiens, which lead beyond the gravitational attraction of the earth to a longer time in which learning and play could have the same perception as someone in a closed take place . (Nowell 2014) elevator which remains within the gravitational The difference already existed in the first field of the earth? migrants of Homo sapiens who arrived in Europe His slow learning allowed him to break his more than 40,000 years ago from Africa and head over everyday phenomena that we accept colonized the ice age landscape for the next as given . Throughout his whole life, Einstein 30,000 years. For a long time, these so-called Cro- retained a particular child-like enthusiasm and Magnon people lived parallel to the Neanderthals ability to wonder . He believed, as he later wrote (Homo neanderthalensis), who then died out . in a letter, that people like him did not age, but Today it is well known that the Neanderthals instead retained their child-like curiosity when already displayed extensive cultural ability . The faced with the great mysteries of the universe . new migrations of Cro-Magnon, however, brought He wondered his whole life about the astounding a cultural explosion, of a kind that no other form natural phenomena that most adults accept as of human had been capable of before . Besides given. What is a magnetic field? Why does the elaborate and meticulous stonework, small needle of a compass jerk and then show north? carved or engraved figures of astonishing skill and He always tried to imagine facts in pictures. What artistry appear in the archaeological sites from would it be like to ride on a ray of light? What the time of their arrival in Europe.

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Bernd Rosslenbroich • 15

This new creativity is obviously connected with the change in physical organization, to which belongs the increased period of adolescence . How far the capacity for flexible inner picture- formation extended in the case of Neanderthals can of course not be reconstructed . However, they did not leave behind any art comparable to that of Homo sapiens, other than artistically Fig. 7: Front and back of a bone disc from the early worked stones. The formation of extensive Palaeolithic (Laugerie-Basse, Dordogne) . If one spins autonomous representations and symbolic the disc very fast, it looks as if the represented animal is thought were presumably not accessible to the alternatingly stretching and bringing in its legs. (Azéma 2011) Neanderthals, which one can surmise from the type of cultural objects left behind by them. (Nowell 2014) France and northern Spain, which we admire Compared to modern man, Neanderthals so much today, arose . The images that mostly had faster pre- and post-natal brain growth . depict ice age animals, frequently with very The shape of the skull was also different from characteristic details, often arose deep inside the that of modern man . In the case of young caves, independently of any direct perception Neanderthals, the skull was arranged in a round of the drawn motif. Thus it can be assumed that shape, but gradually became elongated with a these cave paintings were an essential practice flattened forehead. In the course of individual area for increased autonomous handling of development, the Neanderthals thus gave imaginations and inner pictures. (Rosslenbroich & up the early round form of the skull, which Rosslenbroich 2012) could probably be related to the less concise The changes that Cro-Magnon man brought development of the prefrontal cortex (fig. 6) . with him must have had a profound evolutionary This occurred in a phase during which modern significance. A longer childhood must have been man developed the most important neural important for the formation and maturation of connections. As a result it can be assumed that neural abilities, the development of synapses and the neural connections in the Neanderthals neuro-physiological pathways, and the attainment were different from those that we now know in of increased plasticity of behavior through play, modern man, and that this led to the difference as well as further social and cognitive skills. in cognitive abilities. The extended prefrontal This does not in any way demean cortex of Homo sapiens especially led to Neanderthals or the even older Homo erectus, significantly increased mental abilities. (Coolidge because, compared to other primates, they & Wynn 2005, Gunz & al. 2010, Neubauer & achieved considerable cultural artifacts, such Hublin 2012) Neanderthal children probably as the skilled working of stone, command over also played, but there was not as much time for fire, the manufacture of spears, and much development given to them, and it can therefore more . In the face of these cultural skills, it is be assumed that fantasy play was not yet possible not appropriate to speak of “primitive” forms. to this extent . However, in the case of Homo sapiens, there is The artistic products of Cro-Magnon man a new level of autonomous development that reflect the newly developed ability to engage increasingly enables the free internal mobility of with images and abstract visual forms and to images . inform themselves about them . It is during this Cave painting, as well as so-called craftwork, time also that the cave paintings in southwest with carving and engraving on bones and sheets

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 16 • The Significance of Play in Evolution

of rock, also show an impressive tendency to structure of the organism over the course of play with colors and forms . The experimental evolution, the significance of the phenotype archaeologist Marc Azéma (2011) has managed increases, which leads to a gradual emancipation to reconstruct the manufacture and usage of from the specifications of the genotype. A small discs of bone, which on the front and back “partial independence of the phenotype from the show different postures of an engraved animal. genotype” thus develops . These discs were evidently threaded onto a sinew Wieser bases his observations on the and by winding up the sinew could be made to threefold model of the organism: The lower spin very fast. The resulting speed at which the level forms the genome . The middle level forms images spun had the optical effect the phenotypically visible form, that the legs of the animal were A longer childhood including cells, tissues, and organs, moving (fig. 7). What is this if not must have been as well as molecular factors as creative play? important for the bearers of function. The third layer formation and is behavior. While prokaryotes are Phenotypic Plasticity maturation of still largely determined by the lower One can thus observe that play neural abilities, level, or the genome, for more in higher animals gains increasingly the development advanced animals, especially multi- in importance . It is precisely the cellular animals, the middle and more developed types in which at of synapses … and third levels increase in importance . least the young animals, but often the attainment of The phenotype becomes ever more also the adults, play. And finally, in increased plasticity flexible, which is made increasingly the case of humans, play takes on a of behavior possible by its systematic function, significant role at every age. It can, through play. and it becomes less genetically however, be assumed that these determined . organisms not only had the capacity for play, The spectrum of possibilities of genetic but that, conversely, play also influenced their programs, according to Wieser, becomes ever evolution. more rich, interconnected, and differentiated, In more recent biological-evolutionary and with this there is an increase in possibilities concepts, the phenotype is increasingly seen for movement and for interactions between as more significant for these changes of type. organisms and their respective environments. (overview Rosslenbroich 2014: Ch . 12) The earlier The bigger the range of possible reciprocal assumption that evolutionary changes can be interactions with the environment, the more exclusively related to random genetic mutations autonomously the phenotype has to be able is, in the face of recent insights in genetics, no to operate . For this purpose networks for longer valid. Some authors in the meantime processing information are built up, for which assume that the phenotype for such changes there are construction precepts in the genome, is more important than the genotype and that but nevertheless their relative activity takes changes could take place on different levels. shape only by means of interaction with the (Pigliucci & Müller 2010, Shapiro 2011) Mary Jane environment . West-Eberhard (2003) represents the thesis that Gerhart & Kirschner (1997) show that during the phenotype determines evolutionary changes the course of evolution the significance of and that the changes only become genetically regulatory factors for the control of transcription fixed as a second stage. has increased . There are thus instances that, on Also interesting is Wolfgang Wieser’s (1998) the phenotypical level, regulate what is expressed idea that with an increase in complexity of the out of the existent genome and what is not . The

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Bernd Rosslenbroich • 17

phenotype thus acts with increased autonomy by as one of the top achievements of human means of the regulatory factors . autonomous ability: playing the piano . This A further example of increased independence requires uncommonly precise mobility of the of the phenotype is the circumstance that the hands and their control by means of the will, as individual switch pattern of the brain can only well as an extensive mental concept and ability be genetically programmed in broad outlines, to imagine music . And then thirdly, the highly whereas the phenotypical formation crucially differentiated ability to hear by means of a highly depends on the usage of neural pathways . A developed sensory organ, which includes its similar phenotypical flexibility exists also with neural processing . regard to the fine structure of the As presented above, humans vascular supply in tissue. By means of the are in principle able to separate The behavior of the third complex processes these processes from each other level, on the other hand, connects gained by learning and thus achieve flexibility. This the phenotype with its biotic an instrument, means that the mental imagining and abiotic environment. Social of the music, for example a melody, systems especially arise as part other abilities are can also be evoked independently of this environment, which, as also promoted, from a performance at a piano, more or less flexible forms of including higher as when “a melody is going round organization, can bring about cognitive skills. in one’s head.” Or alternatively new patterns and thus also new we can also, without a musical evolutionary tendencies. (Tomasello 2009) picture, press the keys of the instrument and Genetic prerequisites play a role in the sense allow ourselves to be surprised by what we hear . of genetic norms of reaction, but are integral And in the same way, we can hear music without to the context of the system and are in part mentally taking it in—that is to say, to hear it dominated by it . Ernst Mayr (1988) already “without listening” or moving one’s fingers. A formulated the assumption that changes in further motor isolation beyond what is required behavior mostly precede changes in organs . here is what has to be practiced by every In the case of humans, these possibilities piano student if the two hands are to become are further individualized so that there is an independent of each other, namely to be able extensive unfolding of the repertoire of individual to play different voices, for example melody and phenotypical behavior patterns, which constitutes accompaniment . the comparatively fast changing historicity. Beyond this possibility these elements are Play in its various forms stands at the center then voluntarily brought together and influence of these tendencies and possibilities for flexibility each other, even becoming a new unity . These and autonomization, compared to fixed patterns neural processes lead to increased agility of the of behavior . In the case of organic beings, hands, and through this activity of the hands the interdependencies always have to be considered corresponding area of the brain is also trained (Schad 1982, Rosslenbroich & Heusser 2010), extensively . and therefore play, by means of phenotypical Especially Fuchs (2009) indicates the plasticity, could also have a reaction on organic connection of these two, and in his book works prerequisites and their evolution. One could out that the neural processes are closely related probably say: Autonomy enables play, and play to all the processes in the body, so that the brain expands autonomy . can be understood as an “embodied” organ, This fundamental process can be examined which mediates our relationship with the world, in exemplary fashion in the activity that counts to other people and to ourselves, and which

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 18 • The Significance of Play in Evolution

connects perceptions and movements to each of birds are so rich and flexible that parallels other. A prerequisite is the high plasticity of the to the movement games of other animals can brain, by means of which it is able to transform be drawn. This occurs in the soft, very variable, recurrent connections of the organism with a “study,” or “sub song,” characteristic of young given object into sensory-motor connections, adolescent birds, as well as in the autumn and which are based on their relative functions. winter song of many songbirds. It is thus justified Through this the brain becomes a matrix of to also categorize it as play and describe it as preconfigurations, created from predetermined play singing. The “sub song” or versatile songs patterns, which provide potentialities for of some kinds of songbirds can even be more mobility. It becomes “an organ of possibilities.” variable and longer than the later territorial Fuchs refers to an example taken from the songs of adult males . The relaxed territorial investigations into the psychology of music by song is also often described as musically richer Bangert & Altenmuller (2003), which show that than the excited conflict songs that determine through practice on the piano both tone and territorial boundaries . (Lorenz 1935, Hassenstein neural movement sequences are practiced at the 1969, Streffer 2009) The “playful use of voice in same time. It is then enough to hear the relevant songbirds” in a relaxed environment is, according melody to make it possible to to Streffer, an expression of an remember the movement patterns Could it be that increased level of freedom . for the fingers. In pianists this nature “plays” in Even when the common leads to the phenomenon where ways other than buzzard or the red kite lets itself their fingers start moving just from through behavior? be carried by thermals at great hearing a melody. In addition they Does nature play heights, this occurs without any also “hear” the melody before their simply in the obvious immediate physical fingers create it on the piano. diversity of its requirements, and in this sense is There are an increasing number an expression of play . of studies which show that by beauty and form? If one were to look, it is means of the complex processes obviously possible that one may gained by learning an instrument, other abilities find other areas in which play of this kind exists. Is are also promoted, including higher cognitive it perhaps even possible to find this phenomenon skills . (Herholz & Zatorre 2012, Rickard & in other areas that have not previously been McFerran 2012) It remains decisive that we can seen as play? Could it be that nature “plays” voluntarily bring about these connections and, in ways other than through behavior? Does in principle, also disconnect them . A pianist does nature possibly play simply in the diversity of not compulsively bang on the table every time its beauty and form? If so, the many attempts he thinks of a melody . The relevant components to compulsively interpret every form or color, can be deliberately recollected more or less every “mood” of nature as useful or beneficial, separately from each other, which initially yields would become pointless . Nevertheless, changes the basis for the necessary flexibility. Something in organisms are also due to the necessities of similar probably occurs in acrobatics, dance function, to enable the bearers to survive. And and eurythmy, which in this sense involves the clearly there are patterns of form and function, development of the whole person . boundaries and requirements according to which changes occur . But could it be that, within this The Game of Evolution framework, within this range of possibilities, In the case of songbirds, the possibilities of there are also degrees of freedom, which are play can also be expressed in song . Many songs filled in a playful sense?

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Bernd Rosslenbroich • 19

Perhaps belonging to this is the perplexing forms of animals known today. Did evolution diversity of colors and forms among fish, play the possibilities that this new principle of butterflies, and beetles that every observer formation offered during the Cambrian? experiences . Is nature here playing in some McShea & Brandon (2010) presented, in primary, creative sense, so that the richness the context of the already mentioned newer in creation is not merely in the service of an deliberations on evolution, the concept that immediate purpose, but is rather a game of nature tends to always generate complexity . This nature? Can the next innovative, can be the complexity of individual evolutionary step perhaps even Is the richness in organisms, of eco-systems, or be prepared and found by means creation not merely bio-diversity in general . Secondary of playing in this way with the in the service of an to this it is then delineated, existent possibilities? immediate purpose, canalized, and reshaped by the Among snails and shells there but is rather a game most varied processes . Could is such diversity, to the extent of nature? this also be described as a kind of forms so bizarre that the of playing out of the relevant usefulness of these formations available possibilities? remains puzzling to the observer. The beautiful This “playing” would have occurred every colors and patterns of the cowry snail are, to time in the engagement with the requirements crown it all, in the case of the live animal, often of the organization, the environment, and the hidden by a fold in the mantle, so that they are necessity to survive. But filling in the range not normally visible. What does this mean? of possibilities and its expansion could have Diversity and beauty in the case of unicellular occurred in a kind of creative play by nature. organisms fascinated Ernst Haeckel . Could this be a game played by nature within the possibilities “Beauty Is Perfection plus Freedom” of unicellular organisms? Goethe (1794) tried to connect the concept If one views the different stages of evolution, of beauty in the multiplicity of organic forms to one gains the impression in every instance degrees of freedom in an essay to Schiller, “The that, once a principle of organization has been Extent to Which the Idea ‘Beauty is Perfection in attained, it has been played with.Ediacaran fauna Combination with Freedom’ Can Be Applied to was an early form of multi-cellular organism Organic Nature”: which colonized some ocean beds before the development of metazoan phyla in the course An organic being is so manifold in its exterior of the Cambrian explosion about 540 million appearance, in its interior forms so manifold years ago . The organisms were predominantly and inexhaustible, that one cannot choose flat, and therefore spread mainly on the surface, adequate viewpoints with which to observe whereby they showed a virtuoso diversity in the it, that one cannot develop adequate organs possibilities for this surface formation. of perception to dissect it without killing it. ... During the Cambrian explosion the multi- To enable ... an animal, unhindered, to satisfy cellular animals developed a level of organization even the most basic needs, it has to already in which it was possible to form their bodies be a perfect entity; only then, alongside the three-dimensionally, with three germ layers and fulfillment of needs, there remains enough increased outward demarcation. In the course energy and ability to undertake random, to of this, all the animal phyla that are now known some extent pointless activities; already then came about very quickly . Not all survived, but we will be aware of its outer beauty . some continued evolving and resulted in the

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 20 • The Significance of Play in Evolution

. . In these animals the limbs relate to each between play behavior and the iridescent other in such a way that none hinders the diversity of colors and forms in butterflies, snail other in its purpose, so that instead there is shells, coral fish, and bird feathers? Where a perfect equilibrium between necessity and organic possibility has allowed it, has the “free need, completely hidden from play” of forms, colors, and one’s eyes, so that the animal Play presupposes a behavior perhaps promoted seems to act only on the basis degree of freedom, evolution? of free determination. One it goes beyond the Is it possible—by taking these thinks of a horse that one immediate need deliberations further—to find a observes moving its limbs in connection between diversity freedom . for survival, and we resulting from evolution, the If we progress to the relate it to a positive “free play” of forms, colors, human, we find him almost experience. and behavior, where organic freed from the bonds of possibilities allow this, and play animalness: His limbs, in a gentle subordination in behavior as an expression of freedom in and coordination, are subjected to the will varying degrees? more than the limbs of any other animal, and not only formed for all kinds of activities, but also skilled for the expression of his spirit . BIBLIOGRAPHY Azéma, M. (2011). La préhistoire du cinéma. Paris: Edition errance . According to this, beauty is thus experienced Bangert, M . & Altenmüller, E O. . (2003) . Mapping when manifestations of life go beyond the perception to action in piano practice: A longitudinal necessity of preserving life . This we can already DC-EEG study . BMC Neuroscience 4:26 (www . experience in the realm of potentiality: biomedcentral.com/1471-2202/4/26). Bateson, P. & Martin, P. (2013). Play, playfulness, We call a perfectly formed being beautiful if creativity and innovation . Cambridge: Cambridge we can think while looking at it, that as soon University Press . Bekoff, M. & Beyers J.A. (Eds.) (1998). Animal as it so wishes it might use all its limbs in a play: Evolutionary, comparative and ecological manifold, free manner . . . perspectives . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press . Brown, S . & Vaughan, C . (2011) . Play: How it shapes the Several criteria related to play are mentioned brain, opens the imagination, and invigorates the here: Play presupposes a degree of freedom, it soul . London: Penguin . goes beyond the immediate need for survival, Burghardt, G . (2005) . The genesis of animal play. Testing the limits . Cambridge, MA: Bradford Books . and we relate it to a positive experience. We Burghardt, G.M. (1998). The evolutionary origins of play find it touching when animals or children play revisited: Lessons from turtles. In: Bekoff, M. & Byers, with each other. We like it when the birds J .A . (Eds .) Animal play. Evolutionary, comparative make sounds that are “playful.” We like it when and ecological perspectives . Cambridge: Cambridge raptors allow themselves to glide elegantly to University Press, 1–26 . great heights, and we like to watch young cats Carruthers, P. (2002). Human creativity: Its cognitive basis, its evolution and its connections with childhood boisterously romp about . pretense . British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Could there be a connection between beauty 53:225–249 and the free play exhibited by the power of Casey, B.J., Giedd, J.N. & Thomas, K.M. (2000). Structural nature? Do we experience nature as beautiful and functional brain development and its relation there where it extends beyond necessity and to cognitive development. Biological Psychology the demands of survival? Is there a relationship 54:241–257.

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Bernd Rosslenbroich • 21

Coolidge, F.L. & Wynn, T. (2005). Working memory, its Huizinga, J . (1939) . Homo ludens . Vom ursprung der executive functions, and the emergence of modern kultur im spiel . Hamburg: Rowohlt (2009) . thinking . Cambridge Archaeological Journal 15:5–26 . Isaacson, W. (2010). Einstein. Genie und popstar . Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I . (1999) . Grundriß der vergleichenden München: Bucher Verlag . verhaltensforschung . München, Zürich: Piper . Kipp, F.A. (1980). Die evolution des menschen im Fagen, R . (1981) . Animal play behaviour . Oxford: Oxford Hhinblick auf seine lange jugendzeit. Stuttgart: Freies University Press . Geistesleben . ______(1986). Play and behavioural flexibility. In: Kuba, M.J., Byrne, R.A., Meisel, D.V. & Mather, J.A. (2006). Smith, P.K. (Ed.) Play in animals and humans . Oxford: When do octopuses play? Effects of repeated testing, Blackwell, 159–173. object type, age, and food deprivation on object Fuchs, T . (2009) . Das Gehir n– ein Beziehungsorgan. play in Octopus vulgaris . Journal of Comparative Einephänomenologisch-ökologische Konzeption . Psychology 120(3), 184–190 . Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Liu, X., Somel, M., Tang, L. & al. (2012). Extension of Gärdenfors, P . (2003) . How Homo became Sapiens: On the cortical synaptic development distinguishes humans evolution of thinking. Oxford: Oxford University Press . from chimpanzees and macaques . Genome Research Gaschke, S . (2011) . Die verkürzung der kindheit . Vor 22(4), 611–622 . lauter konsum und kommunikation schrumpft die Lorenz, K. (1935). Der kumpan in der umwelt des vogels. zeit für freies spiel und ungestörte entfaltung – eine Journal für Ornithologie 83(2–3), 137–215, 289–413. empörung . DieZeit Online, 8 .September 2011 . www . Matuschek, S . (Hrsg .) (2009) . Friedrich Schiller: Über die zeit.de/2011/37/Kindheit ästhetische erziehung des menschen in einer reihe von Gerhart, J. & Kirschner, M. (1997). Cells, embryos, and briefen . Frankfurt: Suhrkamp . evolution. Toward a cellular and developmental Mayr, E . (1988) . Toward a new philosophy of biology . understanding of phenotypic variation and Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press . evolutionary adaptability. Malden, MA: Blackwell. McShea, D.W. & Brandon, R.N. (2010). Biology’s first Gilbert, S.F. (2002). Genetic determinism: The battle law: The tendency for diversity and complexity to between scientific data and social image in increase in evolutionary systems. Chicago: University contemporary developmental biology . In: Grunwald, of Chicago Press . A ., Gutmann, M . & Neumann-Held, E .M . (Eds .) . On Neubauer, S., & Hublin, J.J. (2012). The evolution of human nature. Anthropological, biological, and human brain development . Evolutionary Biology philosophical foundations. Berlin, Heidelberg, New 39(4), 568–586 . York: Springer, 121–140 . Neubert, F.X., Mars, R.B., Thomas, A.G. & al. (2014). Goethe, J.W. (1794). Inwiefern die Idee: Schönheit Comparison of human ventral frontal cortex areas for sei vollkommenheit mit freiheit, auf organische cognitive control and language with areas in monkey naturen angewendet werden könne . Hamburger frontal cortex . Neuron 81(3), 700–713. Ausgabe, Band 13: Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften I. Neuweiler, G . (2006) . Die dynamische Synapse . Ein München: Beck (1981) . nüchterner beitrag zur diskussion um das thema Gray, P . (2011) . The decline of play and the rise of willensfreiheit . Naturwissenschaftliche Rundschau 59, psychopathology in children and adolescents . 641–650 . American Journal of Play 3:443–463 . ______(2008) . Und wir sind es doch – die krone der ______(2013) . Free to learn: Why unleashing the evolution. Berlin: Wagenbach. instinct to play will make our children happier, more Nietzsche, F. (1886). Jenseits von gut und böse. Stuttgart: self- reliant, and better students for life . New York: Reclam (1988) Basic Books . Nowell, A. (2014). Childhood, play and the evolution Gunz, P ., Neubauer, S ., Maureille, B . & Hublin, J .J . (2010) . of cultural capacity in Neanderthals and modern Brain development after birth differs between humans . In: Haidle, M ., Conard, N . & Bolus, M . (Eds .) . Neanderthals and modern humans . Current Biology The nature of culture. Vertebrate paleobiology and 20(21), R921–R922 . paleoanthropology series . Springer (in print) . Hassenstein, B . (1969) . Aspekte der »Freiheit« im Pellis, S . & Pellis, V . (2009) . The playful brain: Venturing verhalten von tieren. Universitas 24:1325– 1330 . to the limits of neuroscience. Oxford: Oneworld Herholz, S . & Zatorre, R . (2012) . Musical training as a Publications. framework for brain plasticity: Behavior, function, and Pigliucci, M., Müller, G. (2010). Evolution – the extended structure . Neuron 76(3), 486–502. synthesis . Cambridge MA: MIT Press .

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 22 • The Significance of Play in Evolution

Rickard, N.S. & McFerran, K. (2012). Lifelong engagement Bernd Rosslenbroich studied Veterinary with music. Benefits for mental health and well-being. Medicine at the University of Gießen (Germany). New York: Nova Science Publishers . For his PhD thesis he changed to the faculty Robson, D . (2013) . Old schooled: You never stop learning like a child . New Scientist 2918, 20–24 . of human medicine, where he conducted Rosslenbroich, B . (2006) . Zur autonomieentstehung in der experimental research on the treatment of evolution – Eine übersicht. Tycho de Brahe jahrbuch melanomas. After writing a review book on 2006, 157–200. Niefern-Öschelbronn: Tycho Brahe- human chronobiology, he was offered a position Verlag . at the University of Witten/Herdecke. There ______(2007). Autonomiezunahme als modus der he worked at the Institute of Evolutionary makroevolution . Nümbrecht: Galunder Verlag . Biology, beginning his studies on the question of ______(2012) . Die biologie der freiheit . Die Drei 10/2012, 15–35 . autonomy in evolution, based on his experience ______(2014) . On the origin of autonomy . A new in comparative physiology. In 2006 he finished look at the major transitions in evolution. Cham, his “habilitation” (qualification as a university Heidelberg, New York, Dordrecht, London: Springer . lecturer in Germany) on this topic. The thesis Rosslenbroich, B . & Heusser, P . (2010) . Entwurf einer of his habilitation was published as a book organismischen systembiologie . Jahrbuch für (in German) in 2007. In the same year he Goetheanismus 2010: 7–39. Niefern-Öschelbronn: Tycho Brahe-Verlag . was appointed head of the institute. His most Rosslenbroich, M . & Rosslenbroich, B . (2012) . Die important book to date is On the Origin of französisch-spanische höhlenkunst – Wiege der Autonomy. A New Look at Major Transitions in autonomie des menschlichen bewusstseins . Die Drei Evolution (2014). Cham, Heidelberg, New York, 11/2012, 25–41 . Dordrecht, London: Springer. Schad, W. (1982). Biologisches denken. In: Schad, W. (Ed .) . Goetheanistische Naturwissenschaft Bd .1 (Allgemeine Biologie), S. 9–25. Stuttgart. Schiller, F. (1794). On the aesthetic education of man . Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2004. Shapiro, J .A . (2011) . Evolution: A view from the 21st century . Upper Saddle River, NJ: FT Press Science . Smith, P.K. (2010). Children and play: Understanding children’s worlds. Malden MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Streffer, W. (2009). Klangsphären. Motive der autonomie im gesang der vögel. Stuttgart. Tomasello, M . (2009) . Why we cooperate . Cambridge MA, London: MIT Press . West-Eberhard M.J. (2003). Developmental plasticity and evolution . Oxford: Oxford University Press . Wieser, W. (1998). Die erfindung der individualität oder die zwei gesichter der evolution. Heidelberg, Berlin: Spektrum .

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Developing Hybrid Minds: The Future Will Belong to the Nature-Smart

Richard LouV

or decades Waldorf education has pioneered When NPR commentator John Hockenberry ways to engage children in the natural world, reported the research that revealed greater Fnot only for their intelligence and creativity, but mental acuity after a nature walk, he pointed out for their spirits . For all of human history and that Albert Einstein and the mathematician and prehistory, experience in the natural world has philosopher Kurt Gödel, “two of the most brilliant helped shape our species, including our brains . people who ever walked the face of the earth, Yet, in recent decades, our society—and most used to famously, every single day, take walks in schools of education—have looked everywhere the woods on the Princeton campus ”. 2 but toward more natural environments for Well, we’re not all Einsteins. But we’ve all healthier brain development. As Waldorf experienced that eureka moment when the brain education has shown, it’s time to take a fresh is relaxed and in a positive state. That can occur look at our own backyards and schoolyards—at in a shower, indoors or outdoors, but in all of nature nearby and far . its complexity—with all of its loose parts and We can look to earlier examples. Ralph Waldo invisible connections—the natural world is by Emerson, in a speech at Henry David Thoreau’s definition an incubator of creativity. funeral service, described his friend’s many talents: Becoming Nature-Smart As I wrote in Last Child in the Woods, creative He was a good swimmer, runner, skater, genius is not the accumulation of knowledge; it boatman, and would probably out-walk most is the ability to see patterns in the universe, to countrymen in a day’s journey. …The length detect hidden links between what is and what of his walk uniformly made the length of his could be. In 1977, the late Edith Cobb, a noted writing. If shut up in the house he did not proponent of nature-based education, contended write at all .1 that geniuses share one trait: transcendent experience in nature in their early years .3 These walks not only stimulated his creativity, Environmental psychologist Louise Chawla of but had practical, day-to-day application: the University of Colorado offers a broader view. Thoreau’s outdoor experiences made him a “Nature isn’t only important to future geniuses,” sought-after land surveyor; he could not only she says .4 Her work explores “ecstatic places.” outline boundaries with exactitude, but could She uses the word ecstatic carefully . Rather than also explain the ecological workings of an area applying the contemporary definition of “delight” in great detail . An amateur stream-watcher and or “rapture,” she prefers the word’s ancient river-gazer, he knew the secrets of local waters Greek roots—ek stasis—meaning “outstanding” long before professional hydrologists took their or “standing outside ourselves.” These ecstatic measures . moments are “radioactive jewels buried within ______us, emitting energy across the years of our This article is adapted from portions of Richard Louv’s lives,” as Chawla puts it . Such moments are books, including Vitamin N, and expanded from a 2013 often experienced during formative years. But, article in RSF Quarterly . because of the brain’s plasticity and individual

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 24 • Developing Hybrid Minds

sensitivities, they can happen throughout life. of Kansas, when the results of the study were And they can happen for everyone, giving each of announced. “We think that it peaks after about us the touch of genius . three days of really getting away, turning off the Most studies of learning ability and creativity cell phone, not hauling along the iPad and not associated with the relationship between nature looking for internet coverage . It’s when you have experiences and creativity involve children. an extended period of time surrounded by that In 2006, a Danish study found Exposure to the softly fascinating environment that that outdoor kindergartens were loose but related you start seeing all kinds of positive better than indoor schools at effects in how your mind works.”6 stimulating children’s creativity.5 parts of nature Nature experiences stimulate The researchers reported that can encourage a learning and inspire creativity 58% of children who were in close greater sensitivity through ecstatic experience but touch with nature often invented to patterns that also through the complexity of new games; just 16% of indoor underlie all possibilities for play and learning, kindergarten children did so . One experience, all and through a kind of osmosis . explanation, for adults as well matter, and all We need more research in this as children, is suggested by the that matters. field, although we already know “loose parts theory” in education, intuitively that nature stimulates which holds that the more loose parts there are the mind and soul and our love of place, and that in an environment, the more creative the play. there is no electronic substitute, particularly for A computer game has plenty of loose parts, in infants and young children . Harvard professor the form of programming code, but the number E.O. Wilson’s biophilia hypothesis holds that and the interaction of those parts is limited by human beings are predisposed to an affiliation the mind of the human who created the game . with the rest of nature . Researchers suggest In a tree, a woods, a field, a mountain, a ravine, exposure to the natural world restores the brain’s a vacant log, the number of loose ability to pay attention, that it not parts are unlimited . It’s possible, Nature stimulates only restores us, but excites us, by then, that exposure to the loose the mind and soul stimulating all of the senses. but related parts of nature can and our love of As I’ve often mentioned, these encourage a greater sensitivity place, and there ideas are not new to Waldorf to patterns that underlie all teachers or other nature-based experience, all matter, and all that is no electronic educators . But, because of recent matters. substitute. research and a growing movement Other research focuses on to connect children to nature, a adults. In 2012, the University of Kansas News wider public is coming to that conclusion—even Service reported: “Research conducted at the as children’s daily experience is becoming more University of Kansas concludes that people virtual . from all walks of life show startling cognitive improvement—for instance, a 50% boost in The Hybrid Mind creativity—after living for a few days steeped in As of 2008, for the first time in history, more nature ”. than half the world's population lives in towns “There’s growing advantage over time and cities. The traditional ways that humans have to being in nature,” said Ruth Ann Atchley, experienced nature are vanishing along with department chair and associate professor of biodiversity. At the same time, our culture's faith cognitive/clinical psychology at the University in technological immersion has no limits .

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Richard Louv • 25

When my sons were growing up, they spent a generation ever, freed from the limitations of lot of time outdoors, but they also played plenty geography, weather, and distance—all those of video games—more than I was comfortable pesky inconveniences of the physical world . But with. Every now and then, Jason and Matthew Mark Bauerlein, an English professor at Emory would try to convince me that their generation University, in his book, The Dumbest Generation, was making an evolutionary leap; because they reels out studies comparing this generation of spent so much time texting, video-gaming, and students with prior generations, finding that so forth, they were wired differently. “they don’t know any more history In response, I pointed out that my The ultimate or civics, economics or science, generation had said something similar multitasking literature or current events,” despite about drugs, and that didn’t work will be to live all that available information. out so well . Chances are, neither will simultaneously Here is a third possibility, the electronic addiction, which is why in both the emergence of what I call the hybrid the nature balance is so necessary . digital and mind . What’s different now is not the physical world. Recent studies of the human presence of technology, but the pace senses—including a cluster of spatial of the change—the rapidity of the senses—back up that statement . introduction of new media and adoption of new Scientists who study human perception no electronic devices . longer assume we have only five senses: taste, That nearly total immersion may be clouding touch, smell, sight, and hearing . The number our senses and our ability to make sense of now ranges from a conservative ten to as many the world. Gary Small, a neuroscientist at the as thirty human senses, including proprioception University of California, Los Angeles, suggests that (awareness of our body’s position in space), the pace of technological change is creating what echolocation, and a more acute sense of smell. he calls a “brain gap” between the generations. Each is a doorway into learning—to knowing . “Perhaps not since early man first discovered The ultimate multitasking will be to live how to use a tool has the human brain been simultaneously in both the digital and physical affected so quickly and so dramatically,” he writes world, using computers to maximize our in his book, iBrain: Surviving the Technological powers to process intellectual data and natural Alteration of the Modern Mind . environments to ignite all of our senses and If Small is right, then my response to my accelerate our ability to learn and to feel . In this sons—that evolution doesn’t work that fast—may way, we could combine the “primitive” powers be overstated . of our ancestors with the digital speed of our One view is that people who experience teenagers. Evolution may (or may not) be out of too much technology in the formative years our hands, but as individuals we can accept and will stunt the maturation of normal frontal lobe celebrate our technological skills at the same development, “ultimately freezing them in teen time that we seek the gifts of nature essential for brain mode,” as the Canadian magazine Macleans the realization of our full intellectual and spiritual puts it. “Are we developing a generation with potential. underdeveloped frontal lobes, unable to learn, The best preparation for the 21st century, remember, feel, control impulses?” Small writes . therefore, may be a combination of natural and “Or will they develop new advanced skills that virtual experience . An instructor who trains poise them for extraordinary experiences?” young people to become the pilots of cruise Optimistic researchers suggest that all this ships describes “two kinds of students, those multitasking and texting is creating the smartest who are good at video games, who are terrific

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 26 • Developing Hybrid Minds

with the electronic steering; and those who similar to those that grocery chain stores now grew up outside—they’re far better at having a use to track inventory . Most learning will occur special sense of where the ship is. We tend to through cutting-edge software “often in the form get one or the other kind ”. The of video games”—Grand Test first kind of student, he says, has Leaders in the tech Auto, as the Monthly’s headline a talent he prizes. “We have a industries know they writer calls it . Or at least that’s lot of electronics on the ship ”. need time to reboot, the goal .7 The second kind of student has and that time in Children and adults who work another talent he needs . That nature stimulates and learn in a dominating digital student, using a wider range of environment expend enormous senses, “actually knows where their creativity energy blocking out many of the ship is ”. The ideal pilot, he the human senses—including says, is the person who has a balance of high-tech ones we don’t even know we have—in order and natural knowledge: “We need people who to focus narrowly on the screen in front of the have both ways of knowing the world ”. In other eyes. That’s the very definition of being less alive. words, a hybrid mind . What teacher or parent wants his or her child or student to be less alive? Who among us wants to The Uncommon Core: Creating a New be less alive? Education Ecology Achieving a state of balance in our schools There are far more ways of knowing than should be a worthy goal for business and social technological or nature-based, but we do need entrepreneurs, for educators and physicians, more diversity in how and what we come to architects and urban planners, for parents and know . Finding an appropriate mix of technology policy-makers . and reality should be at or near the top of our list I am not anti-tech. I acknowledge the worth of our educational priorities at home; at primary, of digital technology in our schools and in my secondary, and higher education; and in our own family . Leaders in the tech industries could libraries and every other place of learning . play a leading role . It’s surprising how many of Currently, the force of economics is on the them own off the-grid cabin retreats. They know side of technology and standardized efficiency, they need time to reboot, and that time in nature even for the youngest children . Some preschool stimulates their creativity. For their own kids, chains promote themselves by providing every some technology leaders have adopted these child with an iPad . One over-the-top—or, actually, limits: thirty minutes to two hours of tablet or under-the-bottom—product is the “Digital smartphone use a day; allow ten- to fourteen- iPotty with Activity Seat for year-olds to use computers iPad” for potty-training infants. The more high-tech on school nights, but only for It comes with “a built-in iPad we become, the more homework; make a distinction stand,” and can, according to nature we need. between consuming and creating the manufacturers, be used on these devices . A New York with “dozens of helpful potty training apps.” Times reporter once asked Apple’s Steve Jobs, The Washington Monthly’s special report, “The “So, your kids must love the iPad?” His answer: Next Big Test,” projects that, thanks to artificial “They haven’t used it. We limit how much intelligence, the need for standardized testing technology our kids use at home ”. Yet, few tech will fade away, replaced by what proponents leaders have spoken up for nature-based learning call “stealth assessment”—nonstop electronic or balance in our schools . They have product monitoring of students, employing systems to move .

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Richard Louv • 27

Today, there is no economic force strong individuals, employers, and political leaders who enough to counterbalance the economic develop a deeper understanding of nature and interests of technology in education. Only a balance the virtual with the real. It’s time for a social movement—a new nature movement— new educational ecology. One of its precepts can stand up for balance, and it has already should be this simple idea: The more high-tech arrived. We see it in the growing number of we become, the more nature we need . nature-centered preschools, in the proliferation of natural schoolyards, in the growing skepticism ENDNOTES among parents about over-reliance on testing, 1 The Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed . Brooks Atkinson (New York: The Modern Library, on the growing body of scientific evidence 1964), p .901 . that shows the importance of natural world 2 From a 2008 report, http://www.npr.org. experiences to healthy child development, 3 Edith Cobb, The Ecology of Imagination in Childhood physically, emotionally, spiritually, and cognitively. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977). Now comes word of a new, six-year study of 4 Louise Chawla, “Ecstatic Places,” Children’s 905 public elementary schools in Massachusetts Environments Quarterly 3, no. 4 (Winter 1986). 5 Bent Vigsø and Vita Nielson, “Children and Outdoors,” reporting higher scores on standardized tests CDE Western Press, 2006. Reported in “Nature Makes in English and math in schools that incorporate Children Creative,” Copenhagen Post Online, October 8 more nature . Similarly, preliminary results from 18, 2006 . a yet-to-be-published ten-year University of 6 “Researchers Find Time in Wild Boosts Creativity, Illinois study of over 500 Chicago schools show Insight and Problem Solving,” University of Kansas, similar findings, especially for students with April 24, 2012, by KU News Service, http://archive the greatest educational needs. Based on that .news .ku .edu/2012/april/23/outdoors .shtml 7 The Editors, “Special Report: The Next Big Test,” study, the researchers suggest that greening our Washington Monthly, May/June 2012, http://www schools may be one of the most cost-effective washingtonmonthly. .com/magazine/mayjune_2012 ways to raise student test scores . And we see /special_report/special_report_the_next_big_ the potential for a new educational ecology in te037216.php the hunger among so many teachers for the 8 C-D Wu, E. McNeely, J.G. Cedeño-Laurent, W-C healing power of nature in their own lives . Pan, G . Adamkiewicz, et al . (2014) “Linking Student Performance in Massachusetts Elementary Schools Canadian researchers report that teachers who with the ‘Greenness’ of School Surroundings Using get their students—and themselves—outdoors Remote Sensing,” PLoS ONE 9(10): e108548 can reignite their own energy and enthusiasm for .doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0108548 teaching . Schoolteachers, like parents, receive 9 Anne C . Bell and Janet E . Dyment, “Grounds for the same benefits to physical and psychological Action: Promoting Physical Activity through School health and cognitive functioning as children do, Ground Greening in Canada,” Evergreen, 2006 . when they spend more time outside.9 Educators cannot achieve the new balance alone . That’s one reason why the regional and Richard Louv is chairman emeritus of the state “No Child Left Inside” campaigns and the Children & Nature Network and author of The broader children and nature movement around Nature Principle: Reconnecting with Life in a the country are so important: By building Virtual Age, from which this essay was adapted, community support, they create a wider and Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children constituency for place-based education, bringing from Nature-Deficit Disorder. His newest book, social and political heft to the table. Vitamin N, will be published in April. It offers 500 In The Nature Principle, I make the case that ways to build a nature-rich life. Follow Rich on the future will belong to the nature-smart—those Facebook and @RichLouv on Twitter.

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Anthroposophy and Waldorf Education – A Dynamic Relationship

Jost Schieren

mong educational academics Waldorf significance of the anthroposophical worldview education tends to be viewed with a considerable has become clear in many respects . Recall Adegree of critical skepticism. Their criticism particularly the architectural form of the school is not focused on the education as such, buildings, styled according to the essential but upon the worldview behind it, namely, nature of the human being, the collegial anthroposophy. Klaus Prange (Prange 1985, style of governance organized in accordance 2005), Ehrenhard Skiera (Skiera 2009), not to with the idea of the threefold social order, speak of Heiner Ullrich (Ullrich 1986, 1988, the doctrines of seven-year developmental 2015), all incisively stress the fact that Waldorf periods and the temperaments (in relation education’s dependence on anthroposophy to the four basic soul-forces) that guide the renders it unacceptably “worldview-laden ”. In work of the class-teacher, the main lesson his latest publication, Ullrich lays out the details methodology that encompasses nocturnal occasioned by this basic critical stance. He singles processes of excarnation and incarnation, out Waldorf education as having an ideological the curriculum based upon cultural epochs bias unique among the various that follow the progressive forms of progressive education: Ullrich singles out history of consciousness, and “It is founded entirely upon the Waldorf education as Goetheanistic, alchemistic view of the human being and of having an ideological science teaching resting the world contained in Rudolf bias unique among upon the notion of essential Steiner’s anthroposophy . This the various forms of correspondences between the determines not only teaching human being and nature . In the methods, but also, in diversely progressive education. face of all this, the conclusion is inter-related ways, the content of inescapable that anthroposophy the curriculum and the subjects taught . No other (anthroposophical spiritual science) provides type of school from among the classical canon of the master key to understanding the whole progressive education has a culture molded by a gamut of Waldorf education from its single worldview to the extent that the Waldorf curriculum to its classroom practice. The school has been.” (Ullrich 2015, p.173) Ullrich is founder of anthroposophy is Rudolf Steiner concerned to show not only that anthroposophy (1861–1925), who remains to this day the underlies an otherwise positive educational exclusive figurehead1 for the disciples of his movement, but that it also dominates the latter worldview . (Ullrich 2015, p .91) in every facet of its operation. The critical verdict upon this ideology problem is expressed with According to this view, then, Waldorf considerable vehemence, a clear impression education is thoroughly determined by of which is conveyed by the following lengthy anthroposophical ideology. With this Ullrich quotation: is following on from his own dissertation of 1986 as well as Klaus Prange’s influential book In the account of the specifics of what goes Erziehung zur Anthroposophie .2 (Prange 1985) on in a typical Waldorf school the immense With this book the educational theorist Prange

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Jost Schieren • 29

set the prevailing tone of academic opinion Nonetheless, anthroposophy is Waldorf concerning Waldorf education. While Ullrich education’s problem. His criticism of it may be follows this tradition, he does so without falling summarized in the following points (Ullrich 2015, into the aggressive note of outright rejection and p .143f): the missionary zeal of warnings about covert indoctrination which many parts of Prange’s book • It is mystical and in essence unscientific are prey to. What Ullrich does is to characterize • It uncritically oversteps the bounds of reason Waldorf education as suffering from the massive • It is a form of gnosis which undermines the influence of a particular worldview on several distinction between knowledge and belief levels: of personnel (teacher mentality), of • It is driven by the desire for a “unified totality content (curriculum), and of the didactics of of knowledge” methodological practice (image of the human • Further critical aspects are the removal of being) . limits to knowledge and to the scope of the Compared to Prange, Ullrich is somewhat human personality in place of modest self- ambivalent: He sees Waldorf education’s whole restraint aesthetic and humanistic approach as positive— • He is emphatic that the acquisition of the fact that it is experiential and based on knowledge is not based on freedom, since personal commitment to a high pedagogical human thinking in the process of what ideal. He accords due recognition Steiner proclaims as intuition to aspects such as holding back Anthroposophy means submission to cosmic on the pace of development, is seen as an thinking, or, in the practice of the cherishing of each pupil’s antiquated system ethical individualism, to the cosmic individual personality, and the plan (Ullrich, 2015, p .129f) personal closeness of teacher- of dogmas, based • Contrived notions of causality in pupil relationships. On the other around teachings connection with the ideas of karma hand, however, he assiduously about a so-called and reincarnation are stressed applies himself to the task of clearly spiritual world. (Ullrich 2015, p .110) delineating how anthroposophy acts as the ideological determinant of Waldorf Thus, according to Ullrich, it is anthroposophy education. In contrast to Prange, his intention is and not Waldorf education that is the focus of not to sound a voice of warning, but simply one academic criticism. Anthroposophy is seen as of clarification. This is evident, for example, in an antiquated system of dogmas, based around the fact that he very fairly rejects the charge of teachings about a so-called spiritual world; these racism leveled at anthroposophy: teachings, springing from the mystical visions (or delusions)3 of one man, are therefore untestable That Steiner was not the typical, anti-Semitic and establish a form of metaphysical determinism racist his polemical critics are very happy to which flies in the face of the modern principle see him as, is documented at the very least by of individual freedom . This is a thoroughly the fact that many Jews were members of the devastating view. Judged in this way Waldorf Anthroposophical Society and were able to education is genuinely flawed. It is incapable of retain their membership right up to the time development, since it is so evidently dependent when the society was banned by the Nazis . upon, influenced, and contaminated by a mere (Ullrich 2015, p.147) metaphysical construct which runs counter to the modern principles of scientific consensus. Moreover, not only is it thus vulnerable in

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 30 • Anthroposophy and Waldorf Education – A Dynamic Relationship

theoretical terms, but it is also exposed to of Waldorf education until relatively recently. far-reaching political, legal, and economic As a matter of fact Rudolf Steiner himself consequences (accreditation for courses and was certainly aware of Waldorf education’s tertiary institutions, approval of teachers, access “worldview” problem, and emphatically warned to funding, etc .) . that anthroposophy should not flow directly into All this raises the question of how, given the schools . The point arises repeatedly in his the charge of its being scientifically beyond the works, and there are many passages where he pale, anthroposophy’s relationship to Waldorf clearly demands quite a different approach to education can be defined at all. What role receiving and working with anthroposophy based does anthroposophy actually play in Waldorf on individual critical awareness. In a lecture he education? Is there a viable and scientifically gave on 15th August 1923 in Ilkley (Yorkshire, acceptable way of dealing with this question? England), four years after the founding of the first Waldorf school, he said: The Worldview Problem The first thing that must be said here is that This general human principle within the Waldorf education’s scientific deficiency is not process of education, the workings of which I merely a demarcation problem of the scientific was obliged to characterize for the full range establishment associated with its narrow concept of classes, must express itself in a Waldorf of science, as eager defenders of the Waldorf school in such a way that the school does position are fond of asserting, not represent any particular but is also to some extent Rudolf Steiner’s so-called religious or philosophical self-inflicted. Anthroposophy esoteric knowledge was affiliation, nor any particular has been and is treated by its accorded the status worldview . And, of course, adherents and propagated by of unquestioned truth it was especially necessary them as if it were a path to under the rubric of an for a system of schooling salvation. For a long time the which has developed out only approved way to receive expanded…concept of of anthroposophy, as the the works of Rudolf Steiner science and thus given Waldorf school has … , to work was in a meditatively cultivated the seal of approval as a towards strict avoidance of spirit of uncritical devotion. valid theoretical basis for either becoming a school of This involved an exclusive Waldorf education. anthroposophists or being an system of communication anthroposophical school . This is among insiders carried on in hermetic forms completely out of the question. We could also of speech and thought with a complete lack of put it like this: Every day must involve striving conceptual clarity or critical detachment. Rudolf anew … to avoid falling into anthroposophical Steiner’s so-called esoteric knowledge was one-sidedness …, through the misplaced zeal accorded the status of unquestioned truth under of one teacher, say, or through the general the rubric of an expanded (in other words, not sympathy for anthroposophy which exists materialistically restricted) concept of science among Waldorf teachers as a matter of course. and thus given the seal of approval as a valid The idea of man per se, not man as seen by a theoretical basis for Waldorf education. That particular worldview, must be the sole guiding this truth claim was simply a band of disciples principle as regards pedagogical method in the defending their interpretation of, and loyalty to, Waldorf school. (Steiner 1986, p.203f) the words of their great model is something that was scarcely noticed by both advocates and critics

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Jost Schieren • 31

This shows that Steiner was fully aware of philosophy, history, literature—what in English the problem of anthroposophy’s being seen as would be called the humanities), but claimed to dogmatic and accused of being a sect, and had be a science of the spirit. This semantic difference quite consciously sought to distance Waldorf in itself creates problems of understanding . education from such a possibility. In this Added to this is Steiner’s insistence that his form connection, in a public talk, this time given in of spiritual science is carried out according to the Penmaenmawr in Wales on 19th August 1923, strict criteria of modern science. Essentially this he said: means that all its published utterances should be based on empirical observation. Since, however, Our approach to pedagogical method is to his object of observation is super-sensible, develop it in the most appropriate way from Steiner steps outside the normal scientific the anthroposophical movement. The Waldorf framework. Steiner’s claim to a scientifically school in Stuttgart, where this methodology is tenable form of knowledge that satisfies the applied, has no hint of a sect about it, nor of modern conditions of rationality founders upon anything dogmatic, nothing, indeed, of what the demarcation criteria of knowledge postulated the world is fond of calling an anthroposophical by science . school . For we do not bring anthroposophical This dilemma has still to be resolved. dogmatism into the life of the school; rather Anthroposophy is considered simply as a belief we seek to develop methods that are in system rather than a body of knowledge . On the keeping with general human principles . anthroposophical side various attempts have (Steiner 1991, p.172) been made to come to terms with this problem:

This commitment to a striving towards (a) Rejection of modern science and a neutrality as regards worldview affiliation, even closing of anthroposophical ranks though it is something that is not fully achievable This tends to be the position of in any system, and the establishing of suitable anthroposophical traditionalists. They regard distance between anthroposophy and the dialogue between anthroposophy and science as practice of Waldorf education are something that impossible . They feel that the narrow materialism its advocates are generally in favor of . Although of science as it is pursued in the universities is in this attitude to the incursion of anthroposophy principle incapable of coming to terms with the into Waldorf schools is widely held, within actual scope of Steiner’s works . As a consequence Waldorf education itself, and especially in the they hold themselves apart from any efforts at realm of teacher training, commitment to such rapprochement with the world of science, seeing neutrality and distancing is seldom recommended . it even as a kind of ingratiation that can only be to the detriment of anthroposophy . From among Anthroposophy and Science the members of this inner circle come works of Is there, perhaps, an adequate way to secondary anthroposophical literature, some of describe the ambivalent relationship between which follow anthroposophical paths of thought anthroposophy and science? Rudolf Steiner in a spirit of subtle, self-critical reflection, while employed the concept spiritual science others are much less critical, treating utterances (Geisteswissenschaft), and with this term of Steiner as truth and building meditations of intended something fundamentally different their own upon them. The latter, without any from the normal usage, for with him it was not attempt on the author’s part to ascertain whether just a way of distinguishing the natural sciences his disquisitions are in need of correction, are from those dealing with culture (fields such as very likely to range over esoteric terrain .

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 32 • Anthroposophy and Waldorf Education – A Dynamic Relationship

(b) Expanded concept of science modern esoteric research. The publications of A further approach seeks to bring arguments Wouter J. Hanegraaf (Hanegraaf 2005, 2006, for paring away the current limits of science in 2008, 2012) and Antoine Faivre (Faivre 2001) order to establish a new expanded conception are regarded by Johannes Kiersch (Kiersch of it . The prominent names here are Helmut 2008, 2011, 2012, 2015), Karl-Martin Dietz Kiene with his book Grundlagen einer essentialen (Dietz 2008), and Lorenzo Ravagli (Ravagli Wissenschaftstheorie (Kiene 1984), and Marek 2014) as providing a timely opportunity for Majorek with his dissertation, “Objektivität. Ein rehabilitating anthroposophy within the context Erkenntnisideal auf dem Prüfstand” (Majorek of science . Hanegraaf and Faivre discuss, from 2002) and his latest publication, Rudolf Steiners a cultural-historical perspective, a variety of Geisteswissenschaft: Mythisches Denken oder esoteric movements that are either ignored or Wissenschaft . (Majorek 2015) Undoubtedly it disapproved of by the positivistic mainstream. takes an immense amount of effort to attempt Their intention in doing so is to describe, in a to introduce and defend a new epistemological way untinged by any feeling of distaste, the paradigm. So far such efforts have found no specific forms taken by gnosis and esoteric recognition among the figures knowledge, and to assign each of the scientific establishment. Steiner intended one its appropriate place The problem lies in the fact that anthroposophy as a way in the history of culture . In such works affirm essentialist of going beyond old this way old esoteric forms forms of thinking with a claim forms of consciousness of knowledge have been to either truth or objectivity. In … and of arriving at a subjected to a modern rational this they stand counter not only spiritual worldview on treatment . As important, to current basic epistemological the basis of a modern worthy and interesting an assumptions, but also to the concept of knowledge. undertaking as this is, to mentality of the modern human subsume anthroposophy being, which is not concerned within the framework of with fixed truths and unassailable objectivity, such studies with a view to thus relieving its but rather has a concept of knowledge as open- scientific isolation raises the question of whether ended process, working tentatively, by trial and underlining anthroposophy’s kinship to other error, and at all events approaching the features gnostic streams such as medieval mysticism, of the object of study with due approximating theosophy, and Rosicrucianism does justice caution. However strong the inner evidence- to its own special qualities and intentions. based conviction of having found something out It goes without saying that from a historical might be, it cannot be used in any valid sense perspective anthroposophy has many elements as an external argument, but only as an integral in common with other esoteric streams, but source of transformational energy in the subject’s it also has clear distinguishing features. What relationship with the world. For the asserted it shares with them is that it is centered upon truth, advanced with however much conviction, a spiritual understanding of the human being is always the “false” truth. There is little hope of and the world . But equally central is the fact anthroposophy’s hitting the mark in this way. that Steiner intended anthroposophy as a way of going beyond old forms of consciousness (c) Research into the esoteric based on approaching spiritual phenomena in A further attempt to smooth the relationship a more passive, feeling-oriented way, and of between anthroposophy and science consists arriving at a spiritual worldview on the basis of in grafting the two together by appealing to a modern concept of knowledge . Neither the

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Jost Schieren • 33

historical forms of gnosis nor the popular New detachment that this necessitates means Age expressions of modern spiritual needs can be that Steiner’s words are not regarded as self- squared with anthroposophy . It upholds the free, evident truth. This basic scientific attitude to subjective individualism of the Enlightenment, anthroposophy with the healthy detachment it which is the signature of the modern human involves, is not prey to the often-unconscious being, and is not about to sidestep this through presumption that the reader is free to extract the metaphysical determinism of an ersatz spirit- whatever he wishes from the esoteric contents world . of Steiner’s works . With the attempt to encompass anthroposophy within the framework of The approaches presented above show modern esoterics research goes the danger of how the problematical relationship between its being reduced to one more esoteric stream anthroposophy and science can be “tuned” among many others, without its main modern in various ways . There are no doubt other distinguishing feature—namely, its orientation possibilities that could be mentioned, nor is it the towards knowledge grounded in freedom— case that authors can be clearly singled out as having been made clear enough . In keeping with belonging purely to one approach or the other . this general approach, Johannes Kiersch stresses According to authorial inclinations there will, as a the fact that Waldorf education is characterised matter of course, be overlaps. by its esoteric pedagogy, while at the same time A modern and defensible approach (as putting forward the concept of a profession- described, for instance, under (d)) will of specific esoteric background . The danger here is necessity develop a different understanding that the supposed benefit of scientific recognition of anthroposophy . One that is not marred by of anthroposophy (and it must be said in this narrow dogmatism and metaphysical credulity, connection that the work of Hanegraaf and Faivre but instead has a basic phenomenological ductus does not emanate from the field of education) through recourse to Steiner’s early works . comes at a cost: Its prime feature, namely the Steiner’s early epistemological works task of developing a modern form of spiritual (see Steiner 1886/1979 and 1918/2005) consciousness, will not be sufficiently apparent. are concerned with the phenomenology of consciousness based upon a method designated (d) Applying scientific criteria to the works by him as inner observation (cf. Witzenmann of Rudolf Steiner 1985) . Here Steiner is following on from Goethe’s Yet another way of dealing with the research method of imaginal judgment (cf . relationship between anthroposophy and science Schieren 1997), transferring its application from has recently become more and more prevalent . natural to mental phenomena . The crucial thing The point here is not to argue for [see para . here is that this philosophical approach does not (b) or against [see para . (a)] the reconcilability entail any pre-critical claim to the status of truth, of the two, but to treat anthroposophy itself but in the sense of a modern epistemological scientifically, rendering it the object of scientific theory endows human cognition with the ability discussion . The main proponent of this approach, only to arrive at ontological approximations. In from a variety of perspectives, is Christian subsequent works Steiner was able to pursue this Clement, who has laid the foundations of a approach only to a limited extent, and laments new academic profile for anthroposophy with this fact at one point in his autobiography, The his critically annotated editions of Steiner’s Course of My Life . works . Anthroposophy has thus been turned It is significant that in certain lectures given into a regular research object, and the critical later (1920–1921) he returns to this philosophical

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 34 • Anthroposophy and Waldorf Education – A Dynamic Relationship

position by stressing the phenomenological and thus must orientate itself to society’s aspect of anthroposophy: “phenomenology, criteria and standards . According to the laws of that is the scientific ideal expressed in different countries, it must satisfy regulations anthroposophy ”. (Steiner 2005, p .318) And on of variable strictness involving varying degrees another occasion he maintains that spiritual of compromise . In many of them a more or less science pure form of Waldorf education is possible. In others—as, for instance, in Germany—the is nothing other than phenomenology …, which state regulations in relation to the licensing does not stop at setting single phenomena of teachers and to curriculum requirements side by side, but tries to read them in context . are clearly prescribed . Things are somewhat It is phenomenology, and we do not offend different in medicine, which, like Waldorf against it by going speculatively beyond education, is also a field of anthroposophical the phenomena . Rather, in so doing we are practice. Here it is subject worldwide to a set quizzing them—not merely in terms of parts, of stringent, scientifically defined criteria. Thus but of whole contexts—as to whether they anthroposophical medicine was treated right express something of relevance for a certain from the start as complementary to rather than inner activity. (Steiner 2005, p.419) as a substitute for regular medicine. The upshot of this is that every anthroposophical doctor has To construe anthroposophy as to have gone through a normal medical training . phenomenology, and as such to treat it critically In comparison to this Waldorf education has and scientifically as regards its knowledge value, much more freedom of maneuver . There are is to accord it a completely different mode of teacher-training centers that have traditionally reception than that which has held sway in the worked more or less independently of state last hundred years over proponents as well as requirements and scientific standards. This is critics and has led to the formation of the familiar why the question of scientific status is more ideological fronts. Here it is a question of creating controversial and receives more academic a whole different culture of interpretation. In attention within the ranks of Waldorf education keeping with this, there is currently no doubt than it does within those of anthroposophical among official representatives of Waldorf medicine, which has a more natural affinity with education that, on the one hand, now and in science . the future a completely different tone needs What role, then, do the contents of to be adopted and, on the other, they must anthroposophy play in Waldorf education? It be ready to engage in critical discussion of its would be easy to come to the conclusion that the theoretical foundations. This is in no way contrary more scientific orientation and accommodation to anthroposophy . Its own claim to the status to external requirements there is, the less of knowledge is responsible for the fact that it anthroposophy there can be . This would make finds itself the object of epistemological and self- it more difficult to practice genuine Waldorf critical debate within a rational continuum. education. It would in effect become the victim of the academic educational mainstream. Tried Anthroposophy in the Context of and tested aspects of Waldorf education, such Waldorf Education as early language teaching, better teacher- What does this imply for Waldorf education? student relationships, experiential teaching, Quite naturally, in the context of Waldorf and so forth, would, of course be adapted and education, anthroposophy has to come out of kept . The incomprehensible anthroposophical its “inner closet ”. It takes on a social aspect, ballast, however, would be jettisoned. Within

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Jost Schieren • 35

Waldorf circles this is widely seen as a real that Waldorf schools should not be the vehicles danger. In addition there is the fact that Waldorf of any particular worldview. This implies not only education as it actually exists in Germany is in that anthroposophy should not be any part of a considerably “secularized” state. About 50% what is taught in Waldorf schools, but also that it of its teachers have had no Waldorf training should not be allowed to determine the structure and consequently have only a rudimentary of school-life. Thus where scale of influence is acquaintance with the principles behind the type concerned, we are talking more about restraint of school at which they are already teaching . than anything else. We could also speak of a This is why there are regular calls suspension of anthroposophy . This within the Waldorf movement for This is why there has methodological implications. a deepening of the work on the are regular calls The central characteristic of fundamental principles, so that the within the Waldorf phenomeno-logical awareness genuine core of Waldorf education movement for is that it refrains from applying may not be lost . a deepening of pre-conceived ideas to a given There is no easy solution here. the work on the field of experience. It schools On the one hand we have central fundamental our awareness when, in the act anthroposophical elements such of attention to some object we as reincarnation, the structuring of principles, so that are seeking to know, we critically the human being into a series of the genuine core of reflect upon the many ways in “bodies," development in phases, Waldorf education which we are predisposed to view the doctrine of the temperaments may not be lost. it. And it does not matter, initially, and the path of spiritual training, where these predispositions come all of which are non-starters in both scientific from . Goethe, for instance, writes in his famous and social contexts, and are scarcely capable of essay “Der Versuch als Vermittler von Subjekt und communication. Thus Waldorf education remains Objekt” (“The experiment as mediator between offensive and vulnerable to attack. It appears to subject and object”): be permeated by anthroposophical dogma . And on the other hand the loss of anthroposophy The human being takes more delight in the means the dilution of Waldorf education and mental notion of a thing than in the thing itself; the technocratic appropriation of some of its or more correctly, we take joy in something traditional elements. How can this dilemma only insofar as we can form some idea of be avoided? it. It must fit in with our mental habits, and however we might try to elevate our way of Epoché or Suspended Anthroposophy thinking above the common level and to The question of the relationship between purify it, it still remains simply that—a way anthroposophy and Waldorf education is often of thinking. … considered in absolute terms . The thing here is that the one should make its mark upon the other The basic stance of phenomenology is to in a one to one fashion . Another approach is to submit received and pre-formed ideas to weigh up the extent to which it is appropriate critical reflection. Edmund Husserl speaks in for anthroposophy to exert an influence upon this connection of epoché, the methodological Waldorf education. As previously mentioned, relinquishment of fixed ideas. Rudolf Steiner had explicitly warned about the Rudolf Steiner and anthroposophy belong— problem of anthroposophical dogma having too as already mentioned—to the tradition of far a reach in this context, and thus stipulated this phenomenological method . Steiner’s

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 36 • Anthroposophy and Waldorf Education – A Dynamic Relationship

understanding of art and his aesthetics are also Accordingly, the point of Waldorf education is marked by this restraint motif. For him the point not to be a vehicle for the practical realization here is not that anthroposophical subject matter of anthroposophical teachings on the nature of is presented figuratively in works of art. In his the human being, but much more to create the aesthetics Steiner strongly opposes the idealist best possible conditions for the development principle—for holding which he reproaches the of children and adolescents . It is all about the idealist thinkers of the Goethean child . Just as art must do its era, especially Schelling and Anthroposophical work on its own terms and not Hegel—that beauty is the sensory concepts are best through imported subject matter, manifestation of the Idea. used heuristically in so Waldorf education has to Rather his view is that beauty, order to see if they prove its effectiveness through and therefore art, is the ideal give a deeper insight its pedagogical successes in expression of the sensory world into how to meet a kindergartens, schools, and other itself. (Steiner 1985, p.27f) His associated training institutions, actual words are: specific pedagogical and not through its advocacy situation. of certain dogmatic, ideological And this is something totally precepts. Within the context of different from the idealizing tendencies of Waldorf education, anthroposophy does not have German aesthetics. It’s not “the idea in the a pure status, but only an applied status; it serves form of a sensory phenomenon,” but exactly the development of a good form of schooling . the opposite, “a sensory phenomenon in the To clarify what is meant here, let us call form of the idea ”. The content of beauty, its to mind Lessing’s “Parable of the Rings ”. It is underlying substance, is always something real, concerned with the central question of the value something immediately actual, and the form of religion . The answer the parable gives is that of its manifestation is the ideal. The correct religions have no absolute value in themselves, view, then, is precisely the opposite of what but only a developmental value . They show German aesthetics maintains; the latter has their value by helping the individual to become simply turned things upside down . (Steiner a good or a better person. By the same token, 1985, p 32). anthroposophy within the context of Waldorf education has value only insofar as it provides In Steiner’s sense art is not about the help for the teachers in their efforts to improve transmission of particular subject matter. It is their understanding of the students and to not a vehicle for any kind of ideal, but must be create a better match between the pedagogical effective and convincing in itself, out of its own profile of the school and the developmental aesthetic, sensory power. requirements of its students . Should this With his concept of art, developed not succeed on account of anthroposophy’s primarily in the period from 1914 to 1918, being used merely as a dogmatic conceptual Steiner could be said to have finally separated framework, then it will have lost its value . himself from the ideological “baggage” of the Theosophical Society . As he then began—in Worldview as a Challenge to Develop 1918—to develop the practical work in a variety Situational Awareness of fields (anthroposophical medicine, bio- Anthroposophy can be an acceptable dynamic agriculture, Waldorf education), it was presence within Waldorf education as a form of the requirements and laws of each particular consciousness in keeping with phenomenology . area of practice that stood in the foreground. The method of “inner observation” developed

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Jost Schieren • 37 by Rudolf Steiner is a phenomenology of Personal Development of the consciousness by means of which human Individual Teacher cognition becomes aware of its participation A further aspect, which can also be regarded in the construction of reality and encounters as an influence upon Waldorf education, lies its various levels out of an exalted ethic of in the many ways anthroposophy provides knowledge . This does not involve the use of any an impulse towards meditative personal kind of pre-formed (or even anthroposophical) development in the individual teacher. Qualities concepts, but rather the actualization, through such as patience, emotional equanimity, intense creative activity, of concepts that good powers of (as far as possible) unbiased penetrate ever more deeply and authentically observation, imagination, and a rich ability to into the area of reality of current concern . generate ideas, not to speak of a sense of humor The actual value of anthroposophy lies in and a cheerful, enthusiastic disposition are all the fact that it does not operate in terms of character traits which make a good teacher . narrow, fixed conceptual schemata, but strives How such qualities are acquired, if they are not to engender the broadest and most flexible present by nature or have not been gradually forms of thinking possible . Anthroposophy is developed out of the every-day challenges of the best understood as method . teaching profession is hardly a It does not represent a fixed Here the significance central topic of teacher training worldview, and thus avoids of anthroposophy lies at universities. For Waldorf the narrowness of one such in the transformational education such qualities are the as materialist reductionism, power it possesses heart of the matter. This is where but without degenerating for the personal anthroposophy has an important into a tissue of metaphysical role to play, but again not in phantasms or resorting to development of the dogmatic, ideological form, but spiritual determinism . It is individual teacher. as a store of practical activities, a method of self-critical, artistic processes, and meditative productive knowledge acquisition, employing exercises geared towards personal development . flexible concepts and thought-forms in an Here it has simply an applied—or, in terms of effort to effect an accommodation, in the the “Parable of the Rings”—a developmental Goetheanistic sense, between the conditions of value. In this connection the significance of the object of knowledge and the act of knowing . anthroposophy lies solely in the transformational A worldview—if anthroposophy is taken as the power it possesses for the personal development model—is not a rigid conceptual construct, of the individual teacher . If a teacher succeeds, but an extension of cognitive capacity; it is a by means of anthroposophy, in improving those challenge to develop situational awareness. personal qualities mentioned above as of key Faced with the riddle of an individual student or importance to the teaching profession, then it a whole class, it would be best for the college of would have proved its worth . In his study “Ich bin a Waldorf school not to act in strict accordance Waldorflehrer” (Randoll 2012) Dirk Randoll has with so-called models of human nature (seven- shown that many teachers value anthroposophy year developmental phases, temperaments for just this reason. Admittedly there is a narrow and the like), but simply to use such concepts distinction here between themethodological heuristically in order to see if they give a deeper value of anthroposophy and the associated, insight into how to meet a specific pedagogical hasty, uncritical acceptance of its contents. This situation. demands a high degree of vigilance and the ability to affect thesuspension previously described .

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 38 • Anthroposophy and Waldorf Education – A Dynamic Relationship

Conclusion REFERENCES To conclude, the above-described dynamics Dietz, K.M. (Hrsg.). (2008). Esoterik verstehen. Anthroposophische und akademische of the relationship between anthroposophy and esoterikforschung. Stuttgart: Verlag Freies Waldorf education could be summed up in an Geistesleben . image: The Greek hero, Admetos, upon asking Faivre, A . (2001) . Esoterik im überblick . Freiburg im for the hand of the princess Alcestis, was given, Breisgau: Herder Verlag . by her father the king, the task of harnessing a Goethe, J.W. (1988). Der versuch als vermittler zwischen lion and a wild boar together to one chariot . If objekt und subjekt . In Erich Trunz (Hrsg .), Goethes he succeeded he would win Alcestis as his wife. Werke. Naturwissenschaftliche schriften, I Hamburger Ausgabe, Band 13 . München: Beck Verlag . Admetos accomplished the deed . Hanegraaff, W.J. (2005). Forbidden knowledge. Anti- Pairing anthroposophy and Waldorf esoteric polemics and academic research . Aries, 5(2), education is very like harnessing such a team, 225-254 . thus placing antagonistic tendencies in the ______. (2006) . Dictionary of gnosis & western service of a common task . The lion in the esotericism . Leiden: Brill . picture—anthroposophy as a content-rich ______. (2008). Reason, faith, and gnosis: Potentials and problematics of a typological construct. In P. worldview—needs to rein itself in. Epoché, a Meusburger, M. Welker, & E. Wunder (Eds.), Clashes holding back or suspension of anthroposophy of knowledge (S . 133-144) . Dordrecht: Springer . is the result. Within Waldorf education, ______. (2012) . Esotericism and the academy . Rejected anthroposophy has no value as regards content, knowledge in western culture . Cambridge: Cambridge but only as regards method . It serves the University Press . development of a good form of schooling, and Kiersch, J. (2008). Vom Land aufs meer. Steiners esoterik in verändertem umfeld. Stuttgart: Verlag Freies the qualitative evaluation of what constitutes “a Geistesleben . good form of schooling” is the sole prerogative of ______. (2011). “Mit ganz andern Mitteln gemalt“ empirical research. And Waldorf education, which Überlegungen zur hermeneutischen erschließung in the picture passes for the wild boar, in moving der esoterischen lehrerkurse Steiners . Research on in step with factors conditioned by the times, by Steiner education (RoSE), 2 (2), 73-82. culture and by science, and being particularly ______. (2012). Rezension Wouter J. Hanegraaff: Esotericism and the academy . Rejected knowledge attuned to the needs of children and adolescents, in western culture, Research on Steiner education needs to be taken seriously and respected in its (RoSE), 3 (1), 177-180. own terms, so that chariot and team can make Kiene, H. (1984). Grundlinien einer essentialen headway in the service of good schooling . wissenschaftstheorie. Die erkenntnistheorie Rudolf Steiners im spannungsfeld moderner wissenschaftstheorie. Stuttgart: Urachhaus. ENDNOTES Majorek, M . (2002) . Objektivität. Ein erkenntnisideal auf 1 Translator’s note: The word used in German here is dem prüfstand . Tübingen: Francke Verlag . Führer . ______. (2015) . Rudolf Steiners geisteswissenschaft: 2 Loosely translated this could be rendered as “Schools Mythisches denken oder wissenschaft . Tübingen: Narr for Anthroposophy ”. Francke Attempto Verlag. 3 Cf. Helmut Zander (Zander 2007), who repeatedly Popper, K.R. (2003). Die offene gesellschaft und ihre states that visions of Rudolf Steiner’s claimed as feinde. Bd. II. Falsche propheten: Hegel, Marx und die original are nothing more than disguised quotations Folgen . Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck Verlag . from other sources . Prange, K. (1985). Erziehung zur anthroposophie. Darstellung und kritik der Waldorfpädagogik . Bad Heilbrunn: Julius Klinkhardt Verlag. ______. (2005) . Curriculum und karma . Das anthroposophische erziehungsmodell Rudolf Steiners . In Forum Demokratischer Atheistinnen (Hrsg.),

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Jost Schieren • 39

Mission klassenzimmer. Zum einfluss von religion ______. (2005) . Fachwissenschaften und anthroposophie. und esoterik auf bildung und erziehung (S .85-100) . acht vorträge, elf fragenbeantwortungen, ein Aschaffenburg: Alibri Verlag. diskussionsbeitrag und ein schlusswort . Dornach Randoll, D . (2012) . Ich bin Waldorflehrer: Einstellungen, und Stuttgart 24. März 1920 bis 2. September 1921. erfahrungen, diskussionspunkte – Eine Rudolf-Steiner-Gesamtausgabe Bd. 73a. Dornach, befragungsstudie. Wiesbaden: Springer. Schweiz: Rudolf Steiner Verlag . Ravagli, L . (2014) . Polemischer diskurs . Anthroposophie Ullrich, H . (1986) . Waldorfpädagogik und okkulte und ihre kritiker. In P. Heusser & J. Weinzirl (Hrsg.), weltanschauung. Eine bildungsphilosophische und Rudolf Steiner. Seine bedeutung für wissenschaft und geistesgeschichtliche auseinandersetzung mit der leben heute. Stuttgart: Schattauer Verlag. anthropologie Rudolf Steiners. Weinheim/Basel: Rittelmeyer, C. (2011). Gute pädagogik – fragwürdige Juventa . Ideologie? Zur diskussion um die anthroposophischen ______. (1988). Wissenschaft als rationalisierte grundlagen der Waldorfpädagogik. In P. Loebell Mystik. Eine problemgeschichtliche untersuchung (Hrsg .), Waldorfschule heute. Eine einführung . der erkenntnistheoretischen grundlagen der Stuttgart: Verlag Freies Geistesleben. Anthroposophie . In Neue sammlung. Vierteljahres- Schieren, J. (1997). Anschauende urteilskraft. zeitschrift für erziehung und gesellschaft . Nr . 28 . Methodische und philosophische grundlagen ______. (2015) . Waldorfpädagogik. Eine kritische von Goethes naturwissenschaftlichem erkennen . einführung. Weinheim/Basel: Beltz. Düsseldorf/Bonn: Parerga Verlag . Witzenmann, H. (1985). Strukturphänomenologie. Skiera, E . (2009) . Reformpädagogik in geschichte und Vorbewusstes gestaltbilden im erkennenden gegenwart. Eine kritische einführung . München: R . wirklichkeitenthüllen . Dornach, Schweiz: Gideon Oldenbourg Verlag . Spicker Verlag . Steiner, R. (1886/1979). Grundlinien einer Zander, H. (2007). Anthroposophie in Deutschland. erkenntnistheorie der Goetheschen weltanschauung. Theosophische weltanschauung und gesellschaftliche Mit besonderer rücksicht auf Schiller . Rudolf-Steiner- praxis (1884-1945 Band 1; 1884-1945 Band 2) . Gesamtausgabe Bd . 2 . Dornach, Schweiz: Rudolf Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Steiner Verlag . ______. (1889/1985) . Goethe als vater einer neuen ästhetik. In R. Steiner,Kunst und kunsterkenntnis. Jost Schieren studied philosophy, German Grundlagen einer neuen aästhetik . Rudolf-Steiner- Gesamtausgabe Bd. 271. Dornach, Schweiz: Rudolf literature and art history in Bochum, Essen, and Steiner Verlag . Ann Arbor (Michigan). He wrote a dissertation ______. (1918/2005) . Die philosophie der freiheit. about Goethe’s way of knowing and received a Grundzüge einer modernen weltanschauung. Rudolf- PhD in 1997 from Essen University. 1996–2006 he Steiner-Gesamtausgabe Bd . 4 . Dornach, Schweiz: taught German literature and philosophy at the Rudolf Steiner Verlag . Rudolf Steiner School in Dortmund. Since 2008 he ______. (1925/2000) . Mein lebensgang. Rudolf-Steiner- gesamtausgabe Bd. 28 . Dornach, Schweiz: Rudolf has been a professor of pedagogy with a focus on Steiner Verlag . Waldorf pedagogy, and head of the Educational ______. (1927/1986). Gegenwärtiges geistesleben Faculty of Alanus University. He is a board und erziehung. Ein vortragszyklus, gehalten in member of the Research Institute for Waldorf Ilkley (Yorkshire) vom 5. bis 17. August 1923 . Education. Gesamtausgabe Bd. 307. Dornach, Schweiz: Rudolf Steiner Verlag . ______. (1991) . Das schicksalsjahr 1923 in der geschichte der anthroposophischen gesellschaft. Vom Goetheanumbrand zur weihnachtstagung. ansprachen – versammlungen – Dokumente Januar bis Dezember 1923 . Rudolf-Steiner-Gesamtausgabe Bd . 259 . Dornach, Schweiz: Rudolf Steiner Verlag .

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Waldorf Teachers – Artists or Mooncalves: Parzival and the New Knowledge

Norman Skillen

As a mere scientist you are just a mooncalf.1 can “take on artistic form,” we need a better idea of what is involved here . Only … when your knowledge takes on artistic The quotation cited above becomes form do you become a human being .2 particularly poignant when it is seen in relation to – Rudolf Steiner the crisis in modern biology . The crisis in modern biology? Well, does a constant stream of findings he 2015 National Teachers Conference of South that call the central theoretical framework of Africa closed with a lecture in which the Waldorf biological science into question constitute a Tschool was described as a “total work of art” crisis? Doubts are being voiced on all sides in (Gesamtkunstwerk), with the teachers—each many leading journals, and the interesting thing in their individual way—being its co-creators . is that these doubts are being fueled by the new Such grand words are entirely appropriate for experimental techniques available to biologists . the closing lecture of a national conference, and In other words, our ability to analyze genomes reminding ourselves about such high ideals is and their associated processes in detail is what absolutely necessary, but, in being uttered, the has created the crisis. Multiplying the data is not words call up the question: How close are we to going to solve it. Perhaps it is time to take the realizing this in real, rather than merely cosmetic step from “mooncalf” to “human being ”. This will terms, and what does it really mean? require not a shift in experimental technique, but To answer the second part of the question a shift in epistemology. first: What it means is a school My awareness of this I owe composed of the collective actions Is there such a almost entirely to the writings of of a group of teachers whose thing as artistic Steve Talbott.4 In a series of articles knowledge has, in Steiner’s sense, knowledge, and that have appeared over the past “take[n] on artistic form.” This is easy if so, what is ten years, he has documented to say, but doing it is another matter. its nature and recent developments in molecular In this, the answer to the first part significance? biology, and the story he tells is of the question is already implied, highly illuminating. In doing so he for how many of our teachers could has provided us with a resource say of themselves that they have achieved this of inestimable value, and one which teachers ideal state, or that they even understand what is worldwide should be aware of, especially if meant by it? their knowledge is to “take on artistic form.” So the big question here is: How does What he has been doing is working his way knowledge become artistic?3 Or even: Is there through thousands of scientific papers published such a thing as artistic knowledge, and if so, what in molecular biology journals, summarizing is its nature and significance? and commenting upon what he finds there. I would like to address these issues with a Essentially, he has documented the continuing consideration of the Parzival story as a possible fall-out from the Human Genome Project . This, source of artistic knowledge. Initially, however, if you remember, was going to deliver us the I need to back up a bit, for before our knowledge “holy grail” of biology—full molecular working

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Norman Skillen • 41

knowledge of the human genome . It has With this discovery—or perhaps I should say, done nothing of the kind . Instead, it has done re-discovery—of context-dependency, analytical something much more exciting and unexpected. reason in biology seems to have arrived at an It, and the research following on from it, has impasse . There are just so many variables, so uncovered untold layers of complexity at the many regulated “regulators,” so many ways in intra-cellular level, and through these revelations which the same molecular configuration can the “unquestionable certainties” of the mean different things, so many cellular and gene-centered theory of evolution (i.e., neo- chromosomal topologies tailored in the moment Darwinism), which have dominated biological to fit unique circumstances, that in the end the thinking for the last 40-odd years, have begun complex multiplicity of interpenetrating contexts to totter: DNA can no longer be regarded, in any simply defies analysis—and not merely in fact, sense, as the master molecule of life; epigenetic but in principle .6 This state of affairs creates a effects upon the genome—formerly ruled certain epistemological pressure . If one style out in principle­­—are now commonplace; the of knowledge—analytical reason—is here concept of the gene as a causal reality and its experiencing the limits of its reach, extending code nature are being called into question; the that reach any further will require a different notion of random mutation as the driving force of style of knowledge. The extension in question evolutionary change is now virtually untenable. is that of apprehending an ever-widening In such a climate the standard neo-Darwinian context, widening to encompass the organism “algorithm” of random mutation plus natural as a whole, and then further . In other words, a selection is hard to maintain. style of knowledge is required that can generate Perhaps the greatest discovery, however, knowledge of the Whole. has been that everything at the microbiological It is perhaps worth mentioning in this level—just as much as at the ecological level— connection another radical aspect of this state is context-dependent . As a group of French of affairs. This is the fact that, having sought the researchers5 recently put it: “It fundamental at the micro level appears that everything does The greatest and persistently failed to find everything to everything ”. discovery has been it, we are now being forced, by Chromosomes, it would seem, are that everything at the phenomena themselves, to not rigid, robotic controllers, but the microbiological recognize that the Whole is what rather are enmeshed in a complex, is fundamental . And how are we to constantly shape-shifting “dance” level––just as much arrive at knowledge of the Whole? orchestrated by cellular “music” as at the ecological Knowledge that does not replace, from many different sources both level––is context- but rather enhances and extends inside and outside the nucleus . The dependent. analytical reason? more this dance is analyzed, the The initial answer is that more partners join it, and the less it is susceptible knowledge that has “take[n] on artistic form” to analysis. As Steve Talbott eloquently puts it: would do just this . I realize that this sounds like “Having plunged headlong toward the micro and a rather bland anti-climax, but that is partly the molecular in their drive to reduce the living to point . This style of knowledge is not necessarily the inanimate, biologists now find unapologetic spectacular, but it fits the bill, and how it does life staring back at them,” and this life seems to this will, I hope, become clear in what follows . be that of the organism as a whole. We may well Moreover, it would appear that the artistic be witnessing the demise of the gene and the sensibility that enables a school to be a total rebirth of the organism . work of art and the style of knowledge required

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 42 • Waldorf Teachers – Artists or Mooncalves

to extend the reach of modern biology are one what I mean by an “achieved epiphany ”. The and the same . effect of the achieved epiphany is the same as Knowledge of this kind is closely akin to what that of the spontaneous one: direct participatory comes upon us sometimes as a sudden state contact with the Whole, through one of its of heightened awareness .7 Such experiences, representations. This, of course, does not give which have been known as epiphanies ever us knowledge of the Whole in any analytical since James Joyce applied this term to them, sense; rather, what we arrive at is an awareness are often provoked by a natural phenomenon of of super-ordinate presence,10 which is akin to the some kind—a landscape, the song of a bird, or enhancement of sensibility produced (or not) any number of other phenomena. Whatever the by a great work of art, be it musical, poetic, or catalyst, what we feel at such a visual. The Goethean practice of moment is that we have been Art is human culture’s delicate empiricism is, in effect, touched by the intrinsic meaning perpetually forlorn “knowledge tak[ing] on artistic of some greater presence. We attempt to express form ”. have been visited by the Whole, This knowledge is never of which the phenomenon in some greater reality, complete; indeed it mostly defies focus is—while the moment and at least it knows articulation. No one could ever lasts—a particularly striking that some kind of claim to have knowledge of the representation. Experiences like groping expression is Whole, but the continual effort— this are entirely individual, but the best we can do. as the poet Louis MacNeice has they nonetheless have some it—to “eavesdrop on the Great features in common: They come Presences”11 gives us a sense, to us “at a tangent,” completely unbidden; they or inkling of the Whole, which can permeate, are participatory8 (in other words, they dissolve inform, and fructify all our thinking. To have a our normal alienation from our surroundings, sense of wholeness as it lives in the individual making us feel at one); they are unrepeatable phenomenon upon which our attention is focused and yet they call forth a longing to repeat the is the essence of artistically formed knowledge. experience . Indispensable as they are, we cannot There may well be pathways to this other than base a system of knowledge (to say nothing the Goethean one, but it is clear that if teachers of education9) upon the elusive vagaries of (specifically science teachers) who have to teach spontaneous epiphanies. The question therefore their students about the “parts” of nature are to arises as to whether it is possible to induce what be human beings rather than mere mooncalves, might be called the “achieved epiphany ”. An they need to have this living sense of what is answer to this question is given by Goethe: fundamental . While art can no more give us working There is a delicate empiricism that identifies knowledge of the Whole than can science, art itself so profoundly with the phenomenon is by far the more realistic in its approach to that it becomes its own theory . But such an this problem . Art is human culture’s perpetually expansion of consciousness belongs to a forlorn attempt to express some greater reality, highly cultured age . and at least it knows that some kind of groping expression is the best we can do . Science, driven The expansion of consciousness arrived at by analytical reason, is forever trying to eliminate by the practice of delicate empiricism, which the great mystery by reducing the greater to the involves the disciplined application of what lesser. It is the attempt to arrive at the literal, Goethe calls “exact sensorial imagination,” is fundamental parts (a .k .a . “basic building blocks”) .

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Norman Skillen • 43

If modern physics, and now modern biology, have learned much about the seasonal life of forests shown us anything, it surely must be that there and their animals, but when—having heard, as are no such “blocks ”. 12 The deeper we probe was inevitable, about knighthood—he sets off into the “mechanisms” of the cell, the more the to become a knight, he is still in a state of radical mysteries multiply. We look for fundamental ignorance as to the ways of the world and even parts and instead find fundamental wholeness of his personal identity. He knows nothing of his staring back at us . family, nor even his own name . His training in One of the great works of art that seems to the arts of knighthood remedies the former to have been written (I’m not suggesting that it was) some extent, but does nothing to allay the latter, with this in mind is Wolfram von Eschenbach’s although he had at least learned his name . Parzival. I have had the privilege of It is in this state of radical working with this story for over a In the realm of ignorance, which is also a state decade in a variety of schools and participatory of openness, that Parzival other contexts, and during this time imagination we can experiences the ultimate it has become increasingly clear to epiphany: He stumbles upon me that “Parzival” is something of have clarity without the Grail castle Munsalvaesche a paradigm of artistic knowledge, definition, for here (although only later does he as I have been speaking of it here . we have the rational learn its name) . He comes into Many features of the hero’s journey as the servant of this visionary landscape in the are like stations on a path towards the artistic. true style of the spontaneous this goal, and I would like to outline epiphany—he has been riding them briefly. all day (in a love-trance) Parzival does not have a courtly upbringing . without holding the reins and in this way “finds” He grows up in the Forest of Soldane, to which the castle which cannot be found by diligent his mother had moved with all her household seeking, but must be come upon unawares . Here in order to prevent her son from ever learning the drama, grandeur, and solemnity of what about knighthood . Instead of courtly life, nature he witnesses overwhelm him to the point of is his teacher . In portraying Parzival’s childhood speechlessness, and although he has a sense of in this way, Wolfram is saying something rather having experienced something of very profound radical for his time, and also about himself. In meaning, he has no idea what that meaning is . another poem he writes: Finding himself cursed on all sides for his failure to come to terms with this situation, there Every plant, scent, every kind of stone awakens in him a very strong desire to find his Is fully familiar, Lord, to you … way back to Munsalvaesche and the Grail, but the I feel your presence through my senses, experience he was granted, like all spontaneous For what is written in books epiphanies, is unrepeatable . So now the path he To me has always seemed strange – follows is necessarily one towards an achieved My senses13 have been my only teacher . epiphany, and the rest of the book is the complex story of how this comes about . When we consider that in the medieval The path towards this ultimate consum- worldview nature was the fallen, sub-lunar world mation is arduous and tortuous, and never are of death, temptation, and evil, it is extraordinary we given the impression that the outcome is a to find Wolfram speaking in such terms and foregone conclusion (which is entirely in keeping making nature the teacher of his greatest hero . with the way things are in real life, where no Through this natural education Parzival may have outcomes are guaranteed) . This path requires

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 44 • Waldorf Teachers – Artists or Mooncalves

dogged determination in the midst of doubt and to engage in a joust . Having completed this task, despair—on the way he meets the allegorical Parzival trots back to the three drops of blood figures of Lady Love and Lady Reason—and it and is once again in thrall to Lady Love . Three encompasses initiation processes for the book’s times Parzival goes through this transition from two main characters, i .e ., Gawain14 and Parzival total perceptual identification (Lady Love) to himself . rational detachment (Lady Reason); the third time From a Goethean perspective the episode his “senses” are restored he finds himself face to involving Lady Love and Lady Reason is highly face with Gawain, with whom his path towards instructive. First of all, very graphic the goal will henceforth be inextricably expression is given to the participatory The story of linked . relationship to the world remarked on Parzival is The parallel in the paths of these earlier . The fact that our perceptual something of two heroes is very striking . It would go intentionality is active in the a paradigm too far to list all the details, but it can construction of reality is signified in this of artistic nevertheless be said that while on his episode by the mirroring of Parzival’s knowledge. parallel path to Parzival, Gawain tends mental state in the external image to follow the dictates of his heart— of snow—where he is it has snowed, he is ruled by Lady Love—whereas whereas at Arthur’s encampment nearby it is Parzival, despite his susceptibility to love trances, flowery May-time. The coldness of Parzival’s tends to be a follower of Lady Reason . All this self-punishing thinking is intensified by the fact has been set from the beginning in a symbolic that, as he sits there alone waiting out the night, context involving the polarity of black and white a falcon (lost the previous day by King Arthur’s as contrasting yet complementary aspects of the falconers) perches on a branch above his head . soul . The goal is not to eliminate the one or the Thus we have the striking image of the hero, other, but to balance them, and the same goes stuck in his cold, lonely, inner-outer wasteland for our two allegorical ladies . The processes of with a falcon—the intensified extension of his initiation for these two heroes are oriented, each mental state—above his head . It is through the in their specific ways, towards this goal. falcon that a change occurs. In the first grey of In following his heart, Gawain finds himself the dawn a flock of geese fly by. The falcon tries facing a series of trials, which end in his being its luck on one of them, but only granted “vision” (by looking into succeeds in wounding it, and three The goal is not a crystal pillar that gives him a drops of blood fall down on the snow to eliminate panoramic view of everything before Parzival . He contemplates Love or Reason, happening for six miles around) . this phenomenon, identifying with but to balance Meanwhile Parzival, in addition to it so completely that he “loses his grimly seeking and accepting any senses,” although he is actually them. contest of arms that offers itself, using them with falcon-like intensity . undergoes what nowadays would He is now described as “in thrall to Lady Love ”. be called an extensive therapy session . In a The “theory” that emerges from this intense long, difficult, and painful conversation with the practice of delicate empiricism is the image of hermit, Trevrizent, Parzival is brought face to face Condwiramurs, Parzival’s wife . with himself, both in terms of his deeds and of his But then comes a challenge from beyond ancestral identity. He is also told much about the his sphere of attention. Contact with the three nature of the Grail . Surprisingly, in this story the drops of blood is broken, Lady Reason re-asserts Grail is a stone with properties that give it a very herself, his “senses” are restored, and he is able wide frame of historical and mythic reference .

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Norman Skillen • 45

Armed with this new knowledge, Parzival leaves The battle with Feirefiz is brought to an end Trevrizent much more at peace with himself, but when Parzival’s sword breaks . This actually signals still following his lonely quest. the end of his career as a knight, and he has in Whereas Gawain, the “heart-knight” has fact come to a kind of still point. He remains acquired, through his trials, a measure of “vision,” entirely in the dark as regards any outcome of Parzival, the “head-knight,” has acquired, through his quest, but in mind, heart, and the depths this first phase of his own initiation, a greater of his will he seems at peace with himself . Only degree of “heart ”. Both are now more balanced now, with this “integration of the personality,” than they were before, and it is at this point that is he called to the Grail castle, and the great these two, as a result of a very elaborate train consummation of the narrative unfolds. of circumstances, meet in battle. When they Despite this consummation, however, the finally discover who it is they central focus of the narrative, each have been fighting—this Gawain, the “heart- namely the Grail, remains as much moment comes when Gawain knight,” acquired a a mystery as it ever was. We have is on the point of defeat—they measure of “vision;” gleaned more information about abruptly break off the contest. Parzival, the “head- it along the way, but this does not Now they both express the same make its existence and its nature sentiment: “I have been fighting knight,” acquired a any less of a mystery . All along it against myself ”. From here Parzival greater degree of has been the central symbol of again goes on alone, but he has “heart.” the story, and yet at the end of now fulfilled the second stage of the tale it still remains—a symbol. his own initiation: He has come to terms with, Wolfram allows this symbol to dissolve into the and fully integrated, the “Gawain” within himself . natural and cosmic background out of which Thought has become permeated with feeling, and it first emerged. In this quality of fundamental vice versa . inscrutability it merges here with what I have Now he is ready for the next stage—yet been saying about the quality of the Whole. The another battle, this time against a figure who Grail, as it appears in the Parzival story, can stand, bears all the marks of a much more profound like no other I know, as a master symbol of the layer of the human soul than Gawain . This next Whole. character is an image of polarity, but one in which In presenting this very short account of some the poles abut each other in stark contrast, for of the salient features of this story, I have been his skin is both black and white . His dark armor trying to show how Parzival moves from the is studded with jewels of many colors, as is his primary experience of the spontaneous epiphany sword and the apparel of his horse . He is the to the mature perspective of the achieved commander of a vast army composed of men epiphany . Each stage of this path both deepens from 25 different peoples (of Africa!). If ever his self-knowledge and brings him closer to there was a consciously constructed image of knowledge of the Whole. the naked, dynamically polarized power of the To experience and study the Parzival story is human will, this surely must be it. This is Feirefiz, to have direct experience of the nature of artistic Parzival’s half-brother, and it is the “Feirefiz” knowledge. Artistic sensibility approaches the within himself that Parzival is now called upon to Whole and expands the mind into the realm of master. Once again both knights utter the same Wholeness, but without delivering any analytical symbolic formula: “It is against myself I have been knowledge of it, or indeed any hope of doing so . fighting.” Parzival does not defeat Feirefiz, but With analytical knowledge you know how, whereas certainly proves himself his equal . with artistic knowledge you simply knowthat .

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 46 • Waldorf Teachers – Artists or Mooncalves

We are in the realm where Lady Love— This translucence of the greater context participatory imagination—holds sway, and within the lesser appearance seems to apply at all although she cannot articulate anything without levels of reality . This is precisely what molecular the help of Lady Reason, the latter’s sphere of biologists are being confronted with in their influence with its tendency towards abstraction discovery of all-pervasive context-dependency . and its desire for clear definition must be held in The problem is, with their seemingly unshakable check . In Lady Love’s realm we can have clarity allegiance to analytical reason and their use of without definition, for here the normal mechanistic terminology, they do not epistemological tables are turned, A style of have an epistemology (or, for that and instead of imagination eking out knowledge is matter, a language) that can make a meager existence along the margins required that sense of this . But if knowledge were of reason, we have the rational as the to “take on artistic form,” for instance, servant of the artistic imagination. can generate by embracing such a process as is The artistic imagination does not deal knowledge of exemplified by the Parzival story, then in facts but in meaningful expression the Whole. the necessary epistemology would be experienced in the moment . To in place . They would know that their hear, read, and study a work like Parzival is to desperate search for ultimate causal bits was experience such an epistemological inversion in futile, and that the path of knowledge rather lies action. in penetrating with the questing imagination into A similar inversion is required if conventional ever-widening contexts . scientific sensibility is to be transformed into Such a change, sorely needed now, would artistic sensibility. The practice of what Goethe give researchers the ears to hear what the calls “delicate empiricism” is a way of doing this . phenomena they study are actually saying to On this path we may not encounter three drops them . If they listened we might be able to step of blood on snow, but if we persist we will soon back from the brink of a world governed by come to the realization that all apparent “things,” transgenic organisms, nanobots, and robotic all phenomena, are in one way or another hybrids,15 and move instead towards something expressions of the greater context in which they more like Goethe’s “highly cultured age ”. are embedded (ultimately the Whole). Expressed Waldorf teachers, in becoming human beings artistically, this means that all phenomena rather than “mooncalves,” have a chance to make are natural symbols. The English poet and an essential contribution to this change, while philosopher, S T. . Coleridge, puts it like this: at the same time creating schools that are “total works of art ”. [A] Symbol is characterized by a translucence of the Special in the Individual or of the General in the Especial or of the Universal in the General. … It always partakes of the Reality which it renders intelligible, and while it enunciates the whole, abides itself as a living part of that Unity, of which it is the representative.

“Things as representations” is a major implication of contextual thinking. There is, as Owen Barfield says, “no other thinghood.”

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Norman Skillen • 47

ENDNOTES 13 The expression in German here is “mein Sinn,” which 1 “Mooncalf” is what the drunken Stephano called the could be construed as something like “my own native man-monster Caliban in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. intelligence,” but I have chosen its other meaning . 2 From Balance in Teaching, lecture 2 (GA 302a) . 14 The actual spelling is “Gawan,” but I have always felt 3 It is worth noting at the outset that while the that “Gawain” sits better on the English ear. Waldorf world has done a lot of thinking, writing, and 15 If you would like to check out the delights that talking about making teaching artistic, it has done artificial intelligence has in store for us, take a look comparatively little in this direction in the case of at The Singularity Is Near by Ray Kurzweil (Penguin knowledge . 2006) . 4 The series can be found under the heading “Toward a biology worthy of life” on the website of The Nature Institute: natureinstitute.org. [Talbott has written for the Research Bulletin as well: www.waldorflibrary.org Norman Skillen worked for 16 years in teacher – Ed ]. training at the Institut für Waldorfpädagogik in 5 Dumont, Jacques E., Fréderic Pécasse and Carine Maenhaut (2001) “Crosstalk and Specificity in Germany, then spent 11 years as a high school Signaling: Are We Crosstalking Ourselves into General teacher in Cape Town, teaching drama, literature, Confusion?” Cellular Signaling, Vol. 13, pp.457–463. biology, and geography. He has also been active 6 When there are so many contextually responsive as a translator, and since 2009 has been freelance variables in play, it becomes impossible in principle to in Cape Town as teacher, teacher-trainer, predict outcomes . storyteller and musician. 7 The English poet, Wordsworth, spoke in this connection of “a sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused”; Freud referred to this as “the oceanic feeling ”. There are probably as many names for this experience as there are writers who have spoken of it . 8 This term is taken from the writings of Owen Barfield (e.g.,Saving the Appearances) . He has very convincingly shown that all our normal experience is participatory, although modern consciousness has developed in such a way that we are not aware of this . The epiphany is a moment when we become directly aware of the participatory nature of our experience . 9 In a certain way, of course, we do do this . An intrinsic feature of the art of Waldorf pedagogy is the designing of lessons so that moments of epiphany are rendered possible . That they will actually happen is never a foregone conclusion . 10 Andreas Suchantke calls this “das übergeordnete Ganze” in Ch . 5 of Metamorphose – Kunstgriff der Evolution (Verlag Freies Geistesleben, 2002), translated as Metamorphosis – Evolution in Action (Adonis Press 2009) . 11 This phrase comes in the first stanza of his poem “Entirely.” 12 If this seems something of a bald assertion, it receives very convincing support from an article by Henri Bortoft: “Counterfeit and Authentic Wholes” in Goethe’s Way of Science, ed . David Seamon and Arthur Zajonc (SUNY Press 1999) .

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Core Principles of Waldorf Education

A Contribution to the Study of Core Principle #6 Judy Lucas Relationships: Enduring human relationships between students and their teachers are essential and irreplaceable. The task of all teachers is to work with the developing individuality of each student and with each class as a whole. Truly human pedagogical relationships gain in depth and stability when they are cultivated over many years. They cannot be replaced by instructions utilizing computers or other electronic means. Healthy working relationships with parents and colleagues are also essential to the wellbeing of the class community and the school.

udolf Steiner delivered a series of lectures to of modern anthroposophically based spiritual members of the Anthroposophical Society during science: a proper respect for the human RFebruary and March, 1919, in the aftermath of element in the world . (p .3) the Great War, in an effort to bring order out of chaos .1 In one of those lectures he boldly Steiner explains that in olden times our stated: “People hardly know what it means to be thoughts and actions were driven by spiritual human” (cf, p.2). Waldorf education was indeed leaders and that we were therefore joined in a founded with the intention of spiritually driven community . Now bringing social renewal and a We must consciously our thoughts and actions largely new understanding of human direct ourselves to come out of our own individual existence and the social organism . be in community, freedom, thus necessarily At the core of this new social to cultivate human separating us one from the other. organism is the image of the relationships. Therefore, we must consciously human being (Core Principle #1) direct ourselves to be in and the individual’s relationship to other human community, to cultivate human relationships. beings (Core Principle #6). Steiner addresses the One strategy Steiner gives us towards development of a new kind of cognitive feeling accomplishing this is to “recognize that divine and what it can generate in us: activity is at work in our neighbor” (p.12) and that we can sharpen this recognition through It is solely by means of this feeling that spiritual a specific meditation. He suggests that we take science can bring us to a proper appraisal of moments to reflect upon our own lives, asking what a human being is, to a feeling for human ourselves how this life of ours has unfolded dignity in the context of the world . This feeling since childhood, noticing not so much what we can fill our whole soul, and only if it extends ourselves have enjoyed and experienced, but to every part of our inner being can it put us rather: in the proper mood to sort out, if need be, our relationship to another person. We can regard the people who have entered our lives as this as one of the first substantial achievements parents, brothers and sisters, friends, teachers

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Judy Lucas • 49

and so on and, in place of ourselves, focus our stream” of relationships with each student .2 It attention on the inner nature of each of these is the seeing of the individual child that needs people. After a while we shall come to realize the ripening of several years, as mentioned in how little we actually owe to ourselves and the body of the principle . There is an impulse for how much is due to all that has flowed into us social renewal underlying Waldorf pedagogy, and from others . (p .13) this impulse can be realized only by attending to each individual as well as to the class as a And further: whole, which can also mean the nurturing of the student-to-student relationships. This level If a person looks again and again into his own of instruction cannot be replaced by computer being and recognizes the contribution which instruction or other electronic means. This is other people, perhaps long dead, or who have what it means to be human . ceased to be close to him, have made to his For me, this is essential. In fact, one of life, his whole involvement with other people my life’s commitments is to try to have an will become such that on forming an individual imagination of the true being of the “other,” of relationship with someone, an imagination of the people with whom I interact daily . In the the true being of this person will arise within context of education, the teacher leads the him . (p .13) students in a process whereby they learn to bracket their own interests and identity long Steiner ends the lecture with a suggestion enough to perceive and even appreciate the that the best situation arises interests and identities of others. when we learn from each other, The students learn We develop the students’ critical especially inter-generationally. to bracket their thinking to allow them to utterly The youth can know that all stages own interests open themselves to the views and of life hold treasures––perhaps and identity long needs of other human beings . By a necessary, comforting thought enough to perceive creating opportunities for students at times––and the elders can and appreciate to examine their own generally be inspired by the youth . The unexamined assumptions, class teacher’s commitment to the interests and biases, and prejudices, we allow work with a group of students identities of others. students to explore the perhaps over eight years, the enduring unexamined assumptions, biases, human relationship between a class of students and prejudices of others. We can then push the and their class teacher, allow for an evolving, critical thinking, through an analytical process, to inter-generational, collective learning. When enter the realm of empathy . Students can learn we are honest, we have to recognize that no to experience the feelings of other human beings; one individual can be an expert in all of the they learn to empathize . curriculum areas covered during these eight Carl Rogers, one of the founders of the years. Therefore, the opportunity Waldorf humanistic approach to psychology, identified education provides for a teacher to stay with the three conditions necessary for therapeutic class over this period of time (when possible) change: empathy, unconditional positive places a value on relationship over curriculum regard for the other, and the communication content . In fact, this Core Principle was inspired of both to the other . I suggest that we must by Jørgen Smit’s lecture, in which he spoke about go beyond the recognition of the importance the “general stream” (the curriculum taught of human relationship in education towards a to everyone in the class) and the “individual conscious cultivation of our human relationships,

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 50 • Core Principles of Waldorf Education

a cultivation that includes empathy and an about different perspectives, including one’s unconditional positive regard for the other. own; the ability to work with others, all others, in Steiner says, “The kind of relationship there is teamwork situations; the ability to solve complex between one person and another, this kind of real-world problems, all of which include human interest in things, this conscious participation relationship; and the ability to think and act in life, will be there as a matter of course in inclusively, which is an essential skill in a an independent organism that is on its way to global world . becoming sound ”. (p .43) A school as organism, a faculty council, even education itself, is sound A colleague of mine, a teacher at the Denver inasmuch as the people involved cultivate an Waldorf School, spoke of his own curiosity to interest in one another . understand the people behind world events and to shed light on these individuals in his classes . Leading Thoughts Who was Rosa Parks? Why did she refuse to When I was asked to write an article on this surrender her seat to a white person? Was this Core Principle, I was struck by my own need for an impulse of the moment, or the consequence human relationships as a way to understand the of fatigue, or a well-laid plan? My colleague asks need for human relationships more generally. me, when we say, “The South segregated black The Pedagogical Section Council does not people,” who do we mean by “the South”? When intend for these Core Principles to be pedantic we look at an atomic clock and try to understand or prescriptive but rather to be inspiring, to be how it works, can we also try to understand a leading thoughts for dynamic conversations little about Isidor Rabi, a physics professor at on what is essential in Waldorf education, Columbia University, who suggested that a clock and to stimulate different interpretations and could be made from a technique he developed perspectives. Therefore, I felt the necessity in the 1930s called atomic beam magnetic to engage in my own conversations around resonance . this specific Core Principle. What follows are some leading thoughts from my community of When visiting a sister Waldorf school on relationships. behalf of the Pedagogical Section Council, I guided the staff, and then the board members, in From a Waldorf parent: At one level, a collaborative discussion on the Core Principles. relationship in Waldorf education is a spiritual They have continued to study these core commitment, a recognition of the essential principles, since my visit, together as a school value and divinity of every single person . At a community . Here are some of the comments that second, it is an ethical commitment to honoring I have heard from these groups: each individual’s right of self-determination, • The position of teachers, having authority combined with responsibility to the collective and guidance, is all too often taken away by well-being . And at a third level, that of society, it the use of technology . is that responsibility to respect all of other human • Important in our Waldorf schools is the beings, to embrace diversity and difference of human relationships of class teachers to all kinds, and to work toward the good of the subject teachers as they work together to community and the world, in engaged citizenship. meet the needs of the children . Thus relationship is at once spiritual, ethical, and • We bring depth to our teaching when we do social. In the realm of education, it is preparation a child study as a faculty, and we can then of Waldorf students with very real-world place the child within a whole context . dispositions and skills: the ability to think critically

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Judy Lucas • 51

• Human relationships create possibilities for and less what we typically imagine school to children to take risks . be. Tests would have to go away; 45-minute • We as teachers and staff must invest in periods would have to go away. Meeting relationships with parents, establish an open with people, meeting with nature, meeting rapport, and provide a picture of what’s through meaningful work in the world, such as happening in class with their children . gardening—all of that would become the heart • This principle is what brought us to the of education. school . Why? Because the commanding presences • Our roles as teachers, parents, and board give us roots in the world and help form the members are really to model healthy way we think about the world . They are in relationships and communication and how the best sense of the word formative and can to work through conflict in a positive and inform our being . If there is to be a future in respectful way. which human beings form ideas that are rooted • Our graduates are good at, and open to, in reality, it will be in part because they’ve relationships. been allowed to participate in commanding presences as children . And they will have In my inquiry into how others perceive the experienced that reality is relational, that as a importance of human relationship to Waldorf person you are active and you are being acted education, I came across an article by Craig upon by commanding presences . Holdrege entitled “Reality-Based Education in a Hyper-real Culture,”3 in which he talks about “Have Courage for the Truth” “commanding presences,” a term coined by Steiner, in the lecture cycle mentioned Albert Borgmann. In his article, Holdrege talks repeatedly, develops an understanding of what of commanding or genuine presences “as he calls the Threefold Social Organism . He begins characterizing the real—when you perceive that the lecture by explaining that “it is people’s soul something is rooted in a larger context of which needs which cause them to seek each other out, it is revelatory ”. He gives an example: “A leaf in and it is these similar soul needs which unite the fall, loosed from its tree and floating through them. Education, too, means that one person the air, is revelatory of the whole context of wind cares for another in the realm of the inner life ”. and temperature at that moment ”. He goes on to (pp .45–46) And then: raise the question: What human beings shall gradually acquire [H]ow do we orchestrate or facilitate through working with spiritual science [for experiences with commanding presences today instance, in Waldorf education] is an awareness for children in education? Because we all know that every human relationship is inwardly and perceive how today, from an early age on, related to the whole of humanity and to the the experience of children is often mediated wider world . (p .54) through so many gadgets and devices. We really need to concentrate, then, on how we Steiner then describes that in our striving can help children still come into contact with towards human collaboration, we can find commanding presences . How could we make two different paths, the thinking path and the that the main focus of their existence for the willing path, both of which are important as we first 10 or 12 years of their lives? engage socially. We can find our way to human It would mean that school would have to collaboration through a thinking path in this way: become very different in our technological age

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 52 • Core Principles of Waldorf Education

We must strive for the mental honesty— came to love the ability within a Waldorf setting pluck up the courage to be able to admit it, to allow for social conflict, to allow students a in utter sincerity, that … we are not born free chance to become really angry . I was challenged from prejudice where our world of thought to normalize, not remove, conflict. Yes, when is concerned; we are all born with certain the conflict becomes severe it is the task of the prejudices . (p .59) adults to intervene, but not with the intention of ending conflict. Instead, the task is to allow the He goes on to explain that, though we are students to express their differences in a heartfelt born with prejudices, we can become reborn out manner, then to ponder the differences of of the thoughts of others with a comprehensive opinions, then to value those differences. In this feeling in our own thoughts. We way, we lead the students towards can choose to embrace a collective As an administrator a connection to the other, towards thinking . He adds: I came to love the an overcoming of individual bias, ability within a towards a healthy social organism, It must become a serious part of Waldorf setting out of the “chaos of war” in which our lives to educate ourselves to they are living . acquire a sense for considering to allow for social On other occasions, when high other peoples’ thoughts, and to conflict; I was school students would come to correct bias in ourselves through challenged to me enraged over a rule they felt conversations with others.” normalize, not to be arbitrary, I felt challenged (p 63). remove, conflict. to understand how they felt about the rule, why they did not When I can stop thinking that I myself am the sole understand it or feel they could abide by it . source of everything I think and recognize in my And through an understanding of the students’ innermost soul that I am a part of humanity, then perspective, I could then either explain the rule I have found the path to human collaboration. in a way that would make sense to them, and When we bridle our impulse to share our therefore allow a conformity to the rule, or I own thoughts in a faculty council and instead could go back to the high school teachers and take a moment to listen deeply to what is being advocate for a process to either remove the rule said, when we begin a meeting with parents by or modify it . allowing them to speak from their hearts while we listen to them with deep concern and interest, “Imbue Thyself with the Power when we work with our colleagues to build a of Imagination” picture of the child from many perspectives, A second way to the human collaboration is when we allow a high school student to lead a through willing, which Steiner describes as an review or present new material in class, then acquired idealism and enthusiasm, or the ability we are truly able to “enquire into the path of thought which consists in acquiring tolerance to acquire the kind of idealism that does not of mind for the opinions of mankind in general, spring merely from the blood and youthful and developing a social interest in the thoughts enthusiasm, but is acquired out of our own of others.” (p.63) We can model this state of initiative…the kind which springs from taking mind and heart for our students, leading them hold of the life of the spirit, and which can be in their own interactions to the thought that it rekindled afresh again and again because we is not only acceptable for them to have different have made it part of our soul independently of opinions, but desirable . As an administrator I our bodily existence . (p .63)

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Judy Lucas • 53

When we offer fairy tales and Aesop’s Out of a thinking which is intrinsically tolerant fables without the moral, simply allowing the and interested in the thoughts of others, student to live deeply with awe into the magic and out of a will reborn through acquiring of the story, then we are educating the student idealism, something arises that cannot be towards an acquired idealism and enthusiasm . called anything else but a heightened feeling of In the grades, when a child begins to learn the responsibility for everything you do . (p .65) laws of mathematics, the orderliness and beauty of multiplication leading into geometry, the In a Waldorf school, we teach reading, enduring truths of mathematics, they are filled writing, and arithmetic, but we use these three with an imagination of the infinite, which they Rs as tools to uncover three more essential will later explore further in projective geometry. Rs: rhythm, ritual, and reverence . Through the When we allow the students to discover what rhythm and cadences of iambic pentameter in happens when an electric current passes recited verses, or the bouncing of the ball to through a coil rather than tell them first and the times tables, or the daily, weekly, seasonal, only demonstrate it as evidence for the theory, and yearly rhythms we establish, and through students uncover for themselves the observation of these natural an abiding belief in truth . The world that rhythms, we allow our students Steiner invites us to to see themselves integrally If you enquire into the path of fashion is intended connected to the world of nature the will, you will not hear of around them . “Everything that something abstract but of the to create true speaks to us from the various need to educate yourself in spiritual harmony, kingdoms of nature, if we idealism. And if you cultivate this real spiritual contemplate all this in the light idealism or, which is particularly collaboration. of anthroposophically based necessary, you introduce it into spiritual science we find that in the education of growing children, a sense will one way or another it is connected with the awaken for acting out of the spirit; out of this human being ”. (p .4) The establishment of ritual idealism will come impulses to do more than in a classroom, the speaking of a morning verse one is pushed into doing from outside . (p .63) followed by birthday verses and an exercise in eurythmy, for example, establishes the student “Sharpen Thy Feeling for in relationship to the class of students. Through Responsibility of Soul” an understanding of the student as a human And now we can find a third path, through being and a further understanding of students in feeling, through a sensing of what is needed . relation to others in a classroom and a ritualistic Out of this idealism will come impulses to do order defining these relationships, we enable more than one is pushed into doing from outside students to “attain a living relationship between oneself. When the teacher guides the students, ourselves as human beings and the whole of through relationship, to recognize their biases the rest of the world ”. (p .5) And through deeply and begin to shed them and to acquire idealism rooted rhythms and carefully established through the uncovering of truth and beauty, social rituals, students are led to an idealistic the students can begin to recognize the need to enthusiasm for the divine, a reverence for the become active members of a growing, healthy mystery, and a “direct presence of the spirit, the social organism and to be responsible for the active power of the spirit.” (p.5) In the words of development of this same organism . Emerson, “Every spirit builds itself a house; and beyond its house, a world; and beyond its world,

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 54 • Core Principles of Waldorf Education

a heaven. Know then, that the world exists for Judy Lucas is currently training in Rhythmical you: Build therefore, your own world ”. Massage Therapy as indicated by Ita Wegman, The world that Steiner invites us to fashion MD, and Margareta Hauchska, MD. Before is intended to create true spiritual harmony, that she was the administrative director at The real spiritual collaboration. This world can in Denver Waldorf School for twelve years and also fact be an ordering of our current chaos. “We served as office manager, enrollment director must not take an exclusively pessimistic view and part-time high school language arts teacher. of the present time; we can also draw from it She received her Waldorf teacher training at the strength to achieve a kind of vindication of Rudolf Steiner College. She serves on the Board contemporary existence ”. (p .89) This world is not of Trustees for the Association of Waldorf Schools possible without humans in relationship with of North America (AWSNA) and has served on one another. While the metaphor of a chain link the Pedagogical Section Council of the School for fence may seem overused, it is in fact an essential Spiritual Science since 2008. picture of social harmony . Each link in the chain must have its own individual integrity, and the integrity of the chain is dependent on each of the links. Likewise, each link, no matter how strong, cannot fulfill the intention of a chain without being linked to the others . As educators we need to respond “to the clear pointer calling us to play our part in social healing” (p .89), and that this is done through human relationship. I end with our well-loved verse:

The healing social life is found only When, in the mirror of each soul, The whole community finds its reflection And when, in the whole community, The virtue of each one is living .

ENDNOTES 1 Rudolf Steiner . (2001) The esoteric aspect of the social question . London: Rudolf Steiner Press . 2 Jørgen Smit . (1992) The child, the teachers, and the community, lecture 2 . Spring Valley, NY: Mercury Press . 3 Craig Holdrege, Reality-based education in a hyper- real culture, available at: natureinstitute.org/txt/ch /techno-utopia htm.

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Frances Vig • 55

A Contribution to the Study of Core Principle #7 Frances Vig Spiritual Orientation: In order to cultivate the imaginations, inspirations, and intuitions needed for their work, Rudolf Steiner gave the teachers an abundance of guidance for developing an inner, meditative life. This guidance includes individual professional meditations and an imagination of the circle of teachers forming an organ of spiritual perception. Faculty and individual study, artistic activity, and research form additional facets of ongoing professional development.

s part of my work in the Chicago Waldorf consider which ideas about the nature of the high school, I teach the history of architecture in human being are implicit in both the visible and A12th grade . Although I revise my approach each invisible spaces that we create and what their year according to the class I will be teaching, effects are on us. in recent years I have consistently opened the The thought that these materialized forms block by asking the students to look at our rented were shaped by other human beings working school building from a different perspective. By within a specific context gives us the possibility examining the physical structure and thinking to make changes out of our own context . As you about the design process, they are asked to can imagine, this possibility dramatically affects consider what ideas the architect had about the the quality of our class discussions . Exercising human beings who would work in that space and the ability to “read” the consciousness expressed the children who would receive their education through the architecture of the past and there . appreciating our inheritance become part of the As the students consider each room and the journey the students experience, but what often connecting corridors and stairways, the thinking intrigues them most is to look at current issues behind the design of this particular building in the world and to find out how social change becomes increasingly apparent . can be affected by the quality The architect was bodying We are surrounded by of the spaces we create . How forth the ideas about children the results of people’s are human beings responding and their education that the ideas expressed as to their surroundings in our community held at that time. materialized thoughts. time? The intentions that shape The students quickly discern design become the focus of that the ideas behind Waldorf discussion and lead the students education are quite different and that, ideally, the to think about the needs of the future they are structure housing it requires a different form. approaching . How will they respond? They come to realize that we are surrounded In the final block of 12th grade, we pick up by the results of people’s ideas expressed as this theme again when the students have an materialized thoughts, whether in the visible opportunity to review their education. They design of homes, factories, hospitals, and prisons re-member their experiences by drawing images or the invisible structure of laws, regulations, arising from their early childhood and from and conventions. It is a small step for them to key moments in grade school . Looking at the

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 56 • Core Principles of Waldorf Education

murals they have created encourages all sorts There’s something they have, but I don’t know of anecdotes and memories to surface . The what it is ”. ensuing discussions between those who have As his teachers we were, to say the least, been in the school since the parent–tot stage and rather astonished, delighted, and intrigued to those who arrived later are richly peppered with hear this comment, as was his mother! What stories—some of them funny, others sad—that does this point to? reveal just how much children notice about their I think he was sensing the emerging surroundings: details of the physical space, but intentional community that develops through the also details of the soul space . These memories individual meditative practice of the colleagues, and the sharing of experiences, combined with the forming and working out of shared time spent in early childhood and grade school agreements, shared study and artistic practice, classes, provoke may questions that become the on-going professional development, all in a content of the block . context of the power of an awakening love for the Each year the intention behind the shaping incarnating human being. of our school, as a faculty of teachers and administrative staff, becomes tangible in the When I consider the comments of students, questions and comments of the students. It is my thoughts turn to what is called the “College not always as delightful as we might wish. They Imagination.” I am mindful of the fact that have been educated to be perceptive, thoughtful, all the members of a faculty—teachers and and articulate—and they are. It’s interesting to administrative staff alike—can be engaged in the hear what they have observed and what they activity described in this imagination. The picture think. I often feel that I am seeing their soul of adults forming a chalice out of the power of experience of what we as a faculty have formed their individual meditative striving, of the cup out of our individual commitment and collective being woven out of a selfless sharing of each collaboration. What is this commitment? And one’s strengths and the heightened awareness what is the foundation for our collaborative that can allow a different quality of insight, is research? How might we be different from any potent. I see the question of spiritual orientation other intentional community with a common as an essential element in the strengthening vision? of the “vessel activity” that can generate the imaginations, inspirations, and intuitions needed I am reminded of an anecdote told to me for the work. Surely the question is not a simple by a parent some years ago prior to the opening if but how we participate in this work together. of our high school. Her son was a delightfully Roberto Trostli’s article in the PSC publication, challenging student in the grade school, skilled Creating a Chalice of Collaborative Spiritual in asking provocative questions and keeping us Leadership, addresses the work that can arise on our toes. A few years after leaving the grade when this imagination is active in a school. school, he was discussing his future with his [This article is also available in two parts in the mother. When she asked what he wanted to Research Bulletin, Vol. 16 #2, and Vol. 17 #1 – Ed.] do after college, he responded, “I don’t know From a soul perspective both teaching and what I want to do, but I do know what I want to parenting are “athletic” activities. One parent, be. I want to be successful.” When asked what at the end of the 12th grade year, described success meant, his response was, “I want to be the experience as a certain culmination of a successful like the Waldorf teachers. They are all personal Long March, and he expressed a deep really different from one another, but they figure appreciation for the experience of working for 14 out how to get along and work together for us . years with the changing constellation of teachers.

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Frances Vig • 57

Looking back, he could see how the content of does it mean for us to concern ourselves with the curriculum and the style of approach taken by thoughts of a spiritual nature about the evolving the teachers had an emerging coherence full of human being? It is a commitment to research and meaning for students and parents alike . explore Steiner’s thinking about the nature and Despite the discussions we have about development of the students who are placed in the right language for communicating Waldorf our care . Steiner was even more explicit about education, I think that the most effective the importance of the teachers’ meditative work language in any human encounter is that which in subsequent years. He was clearly expecting arises when we are actively present, exercising the teachers to take up what he was giving a profound listening and them not as mere information, speaking out of our experience Steiner was expecting but as themes for meditative and understanding . It seems the teachers to contemplation. The Core to me that we are effective to take up what he Principles have been formed to the degree that we understand was giving them support us in this work . the work of our colleagues in not merely as I experience the seventh different subjects and levels information, but as principle addressing spiritual and the role that they play in orientation as a remarkable engaging the developmental meditations. invitation to become more curriculum . I think that authentically ourselves we will find the language we need in each as individuals as we engage in becoming encounter when, as colleagues, we actively and contemporary researchers of the path to authentically awaken the process of becoming a incarnation of the human spirit. Each of us brings Waldorf school. significant strengths as well as real challenges As teachers and administrators we know to our work. But we do not work in isolation. As that what we do and how we work together Waldorf teachers and administrators, we have is highly formative. When we the remarkable opportunity—the take a position as teachers in a As teachers in a responsibility, in fact—to share Waldorf school we are making a Waldorf school we our work with one another, professional commitment that have to develop learning from the variety of asks us to develop beyond our beyond our own approaches, successes, and own personal inclinations without personal inclinations failures that we experience. We relinquishing our integrity . In have the responsibility to develop the first lecture of Study of Man without relinquishing honest relationships between (CW 293), Rudolf Steiner speaks our integrity. us, with all the difficulties that of the deep relationship that this can entail. We organize the forms between teacher and students when that daily life of running a school through shared teacher concerns herself with thoughts about agreements . All of this requires us to make the spiritual nature of the evolving human being . commitments . These elements are part of the This relationship also has the effect of helping us soul and spiritual architecture of our schools . overcome our own individual one-sidedness and These structures are the context for the students’ personal inclinations and encourages us to be experience of their education and will have a more aware and attentive. formative effect. As we live our commitments and While Steiner is focused here on the student- agreements, day by day, we have the opportunity teacher relationships, this also has a profound to model what it means to be in relationships effect on all relationships in the school. What that can develop. This process needs time—

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 58 • Core Principles of Waldorf Education

not too much, but enough. We can revisit our Frances Vig, born and educated in England, is agreements when needed and exercise the kind one of the founding members of the Chicago of responsible innovation that requires dialog. Waldorf School, where she has taken two classes In an increasingly splintered and time- grades one through eight as well as being a squeezed world, as described by some of our subject teacher in the arts. She is currently a students, we can give them the soul space in class advisor and high school teacher focusing on which to breathe, and we can model for them the sculptural arts and metalwork. A member of an experience of relationship-building that CWS’s College of Teachers, Frances has worked in the children and youth so sorely need. I often teacher development, served as College chair and think about the freedom we have and wonder as a member of the Board of Trustees. She also whether we are using that freedom to be as teaches in various anthroposophical conferences truly innovative as our times and the needs of and adult trainings programs across North our students are asking us to be. We have been America, including the Arcturus Rudolf Steiner given the gift of this work; what do we choose to Education Program, of which she is a core faculty do with it? And how do we shape it to meet the member. Frances is a member of the Pedagogical emerging future? It really is up to us . Section Council of North America, which she represents on the Leadership Council of AWSNA; she is also a member-at-large of the Teacher Education Network of AWSNA.

Are we using the freedom we have to be as innovative as our times and the needs of our students are asking of us?

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Report from the Online Waldorf Library

Marianne Alsop

he Online Waldorf Library continued its edited by David Mitchell; Economic Explorations, growth and expansion throughout 2015, and A Handbook for Waldorf Schools edited by David Twe look forward to a busy and productive Mitchell and David Alsop; and Finding Your Self by year ahead! Our focus on providing articles Torin Finser. In addition we have added a series and eBooks translated into Spanish continues of early readers for school-aged children: As My with five new articles added in the past few Heart Awakens, Fee Fi Fo Fum, Snip Snap Snout, months: “Desarrollo Acelerado y con Retraso” by When I Hear My Heart Wonder, and Sun So Hot I Renate Long-Briepohl; “El Sujeto, el Predicado Froze to Death all by Arthur M. Pittis. y el Objeto en la Gramática” by Jørgen Smit; “Aspectos Fundamentales del Programa Waldorf Looking ahead, we plan to add audio para la Educación Infantile” by Susan Howard; downloads of lectures, and in keeping with “Cómo Enseñar a Nuestros Niños a Escribir, our policy, all audio resources will be available Leer y Deletrear” by Dr. Susan Johnson; and “La for free . Enseñanza de la Escritura” by Eileen Hutchins . In 2015, even though we worked at minimal New eBooks in Spanish include Para los Niños capacity for a number of weeks due to moving del Mundo (For the Children of the World) a title our site to a more secure format, the OWL from the Waldorf Early Childhood Association, received nearly 100,000 visitors . Research Y se Hizo la Luz (And There Was Light) and questions and comments are always welcomed! Hermano Francisco (Brother Francis) by Jakob Streit, and Intelligencia Desarrollada por la Voluntad (Will Developed Intelligence) by Patricia Livingston and David Mitchell, translated by Real Academia Española . Visit the Recently added eBooks in English include Chemistry Reader, An Orientation to Developing Online Waldorf Library Chemistry Instruction in Waldorf Schools by Dr . at Dirk Rohde; three eBooks by R.C. Oelhaf specific www.waldorflibrary.org to high school sciences and math: A Waldorf High School Chemistry Program, A Waldorf High School Mathematics Program and A Waldorf High School Physics Program; The Children of Cyclops, The Influences of Television Viewing on the Human Brain by Keith Buzzell; Journey to the Promised Land and Liputto by Jakob Streit; Space and Counterspace: An Introduction to Modern Geometry by Louis Locher-Ernst; The Alpha Beta Book by Keith McCrary; The Art of Administration

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Report from Waldorf Publications

Patrice Maynard

hanks to the financial support of the Waldorf Americans . A children’s story about contemporary Curriculum Fund, the Research Institute for life on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota TWaldorf Education, RIWE, is expanding its scope may also be published in both Lakota and English of activities. This spring will mark the publishing during this calendar year . of our first audio book, available through our Online Waldorf Library (OWL). Assessment The Avalon Initiative, a project of RIWE, has for Learning in Waldorf Classrooms by Sara engaged in public discourse disseminating ideas Ciborski and Helen-Ann Ireland will be our first through collaboration with thought leaders from accomplishment in this medium . Academica the public school sector in New York . The third Press gave us immediate and enthusiastic annual conference to be hosted by the Avalon permission to transform the book into this audio Initiative will be held in Red Hook, New York, in format . Many more will follow . April, and will have as its theme the need for relationship-based education—children relating With the growing interest in Waldorf to teachers instead of to “artificial intelligence education burgeoning in Asia, the Research mentors” as is proposed by the federal Institute is preparing to make books and government for the near future . resources available to our colleagues in China through translated books on the OWL. All of these undertakings to expand the SteinerBooks has generously granted permission offerings to colleagues around the world in for books by Rudolf Steiner on Waldorf new, more accessible formats, and to provide education, already translated into Mandarin but leadership concerning educational imaginations not publishable in China, to be included in those are in addition to the ongoing work of the offerings. Books from Waldorf Publications will Research Institute and Waldorf Publications. also be translated into Mandarin over the next The Research Bulletin, research on Waldorf few years and made available on the OWL. These graduates, Teaching Sensible Science courses for teaching resources are much needed in China, practicing teachers, the posting of relevant recent and RIWE is very grateful for a special gift from research on the RIWE website, the continued the Waldorf Curriculum Fund that will make this expansion of the OWL’s collection of eBooks (a important work available to Chinese colleagues . growing number of them in Spanish as well), the Translators in Beijing are especially eager to make international collaborations on Waldorf education as many resources available as possible . and the resources to support it, and research underscoring the efficacy of Rudolf Steiner’s Resources in the language of Lakota will indications are all being continued with robust also be published by next autumn . Verses and energy . stories told at the Lakota Waldorf School will be available in English and the Lakota language with pronunciation guides to make it possible for class teachers in North America to offer their students authentic literature from the Plains Native

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Research Opportunities

eachers are invited to participate in a couple of The second is a project sponsored by the research projects currently underway. The first Research Institute for Waldorf Education (RIWE) Tinvitation comes from Patrick Wakeford-Evans, and coordinated by Elan Leibner, editor of RIWE’s long-time teacher at Rudolf Steiner College, Research Bulletin: who writes: Entitled “ActionWave” this project is Please join my study exploring peak an investigation of a method for creating experiences in teachers during learning systematic, rhythmic intervals of (intensity- encounters with children . This phenomenon has modulated) activity and recovery, based on been studied in artists, athletes, and musicians, the research of cardiovascular surgeon Irving but rarely among teachers. We all know that the Dardik. In the context of Waldorf education, meaningful encounters we have with children this project will attempt to codify “breathing” sustain us, as teachers, and give our lives in the classroom through sequences of mostly meaning. I hope you will participate in this study, higher-than-average-intensity action, followed which is the basis for my doctoral dissertation. by complete recovery. The first phase of the Follow the link below to my research website . study has returned largely positive results, and we are looking to enlarge the number of https://www.taskstream.com/ts/manager61/ teachers willing to try this methodology in their pwe_phd . classrooms. Modest stipends are available for teachers participating in this research. For more information, contact Elan at:

[email protected].

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 About the Research Institute for Waldorf Education

he Research Institute for Waldorf Education books published by the Waldorf Early Childhood (RIWE), founded in 1996 in order to deepen Association of North America (WECAN) and the Tand enhance the quality of Waldorf education, Pedagogical Section Council (PSC) of the School engages in sustained dialogue with the wider for Spiritual Science, as well as AWSNA’s twice- educational-cultural community and supports yearly magazine Renewal . research to serve a wide range of educators in As an initiative working on behalf of the their work with children and adolescents . Waldorf movement, the Research Institute The Research Institute supports projects receives support and guidance from the PSC dealing with essential contemporary educational and financial support through the following issues such as computers and the effects of organizations: media on children, alternatives to standardized • Astoria-Stiftung testing, physical health and psychological • Foundation for Rudolf Steiner Books wellbeing of students, science teaching with a • Freunde der Erziehungskunst phenomenological approach, the role of the arts • Marshall and Margharite McComb Foundation in education, and the philosophical underpinnings • Rudolf and Clara Kreutzer-Stiftung of Waldorf education. • Rudolf Steiner Charitable Trust As a sponsor of colloquia and conferences, • Sprout Foundation the Research Institute brings together educators, • Waldorf Curriculum Fund psychologists, physicians, and social scientists • Waldorf Educational Foundation for discussions on current issues related to • Waldorf-Stiftung education. RIWE publishes a Research Bulletin twice a year and prepares educational resources, The Research Institute is a tax-exempt including collections of eBooks and articles (a organization and accepts contributions through growing number of them newly translated into its annual giving campaign and special appeals . Spanish). Many of these publications are available without charge on the website of the Online Summary of Activities Supported by the Research Institute Waldorf Library (OWL), a virtual library created and managed by the Research Institute: www. avalon initiative waldorflibrary.org. A think tank for questions of freedom in education In 2013 the Research Institute took over the colloquia (with published proceedings) on teaching: Chemistry publications arm of the Association of Waldorf Computer and Information Technology Schools of North America (AWSNA) and re- English branded it as Waldorf Publications. It includes Life Sciences and Environmental Studies resources for teachers and administrators, Mathematics readers and children’s books, collections of plays Physical Sciences and poetry, science materials and kits, science U .S . History World History: Symptomatology and math newsletters, inspirational essays, online waldorf library (owl) proceedings of colloquia, and a range of publicity Over 2000 articles and 700 book titles materials about Waldorf education. It also carries

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 About the Research Institite • 63 recent research projects Research Bulletin ActionWave study Editor: Elan Leibner Alternatives to Standardized Assessment email: [email protected] Computer Technology in Waldorf Schools Cover design: David Mitchell Human Sexuality Curriculum Copy editing: Douglas Gerwin Survey of Waldorf Graduates Proofreading: Ann Erwin, Tertia Gale Waldorf High School Curriculum Research Projects Production/layout: Ann Erwin research bulletin Two issues per year of essays, articles, reviews, Research Institute for Waldorf Education and commentaries on educational themes Douglas Gerwin, Executive Director Milan Daler, Administrator retreats of the research institute P.O. Box 307 • Wilton, NH 03086 Presentations and discussions exploring Phone: (603) 654-2566 • Fax: (603) 654-5258 contemporary questions related to education email: [email protected] riwe website Patrice Maynard, Director of Publications Collections of articles and news features on and Development current educational issues 38 Main Street • Chatham, NY 12037 teaching sensible science Phone: (518) 392-0613 • Fax: (518) 684-1588 Three one-week courses on teaching science in email: [email protected] elementary grades using a phenomenological Marianne Alsop, Librarian of the Online Waldorf approach Library (OWL) waldorf publications www.waldorflibrary.org Over 400 book titles, plus science kits, publicity email: [email protected] materials on Waldorf education Tom Stier, Webmaster of the RIWE website www.waldorfresearchinstitute.org

Board of Directors Eugene Waldorf School San Francisco Waldorf School Arthur Zajonc, President Franz E. Winkler Center for Adult Santa Cruz Waldorf School Virginia Flynn, Treasurer Learning Santa Fe Waldorf School Natalie Adams, Secretary Great Barrington Rudolf Steiner Seattle Waldorf School Douglas Gerwin, RIWE Executive School Shining Mountain Waldorf School Director Green Meadow Waldorf School Sound Circle Center for Arts and Frederick Amrine Haleakala Waldorf School Anthroposophy Alice Groh Hartsbrook School Spring Garden Waldorf School Hansjoerg Hofrichter Hawthorne Valley School Summerfield Waldorf School Susan Howard High Mowing School & Farm Elan Leibner Highland Hall Waldorf School Susquehanna Waldorf School Jost Schieren Honolulu Waldorf School Toronto Waldorf School Douglas Sloan Kimberton Waldorf School Vancouver Waldorf School Les Enfants de la Terre Waldorf Academy Supporting Members Maine Coast Waldorf School Waldorf High School of Academe of the Oaks Marin Waldorf School Massachusetts Bay Anchorage Waldorf School Monadnock Waldorf School Waldorf School at Moraine Farm AWSNA Pasadena Waldorf School Waldorf School of Garden City Camphill Special School-Beaver Run Pine Hill Waldorf School Waldorf School of Lexington Center for Anthroposophy Portland Waldorf School Waldorf School of Orange County Chicago Waldorf School Prairie Hill Waldorf School Waldorf School of Pittsburgh Cincinnati Waldorf School Rudolf Steiner Centre Toronto Waldorf School of Princeton City of Lakes Waldorf School Rudolf Steiner College Waldorf School of San Diego Denver Waldorf School Rudolf Steiner School of Ann Arbor Waldorf School of the Peninsula East Bay Waldorf School Rudolf Steiner School, NY Waldorf Teacher Education Eugene Emerson Waldorf School Sacramento Waldorf School Washington Waldorf School

Research Bulletin • Spring/Summer 2016 • Volume 21 • #1 Subscribe now to the

and keep upResearch to date on research Bulletin on Waldorf Education Every Autumn and Spring

Enrich your reading with cutting edge news from inside and outside the Waldorf movement on: xx child development xx brain development xx art and education xx profiles from the field xx recent data on surveys and more!

YES, we would like to subscribe to the Research Bulletin!

Starting with the calendar year______. There are two issues in each calendar year.

Name: ______School (if applicable):______

Address: ______City, State, Zip:______

Phone:______Email:______

One Year: Two Year: Supporting institution $295 Supporting institution $500 (20 copies each issue; free shipping) Individual subscription $50

Individual subscription $30 Three Year: Single current issue $20 Supporting institution $750 Individual $70

Additional international postage and handling: Canada $4 per issue or $8 additional per year Europe & South America, Africa, Australia and Asia $9 per issue or $18 additional per year

Please make checks payable in US currency to “Research Institute for Waldorf Education” Mail this subscription form to: Waldorf Publications at the Research Institute for Waldorf Education 38 Main Street Chatham, NY 12037

RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR Questions or to order by credit card: Call 518-392-0613 or Email [email protected] EDUCATION Or subscribe on our website: www.waldorfresearchinstitute.org Waldorf Shop in our Bookstore: www whywaldorfworks. .org

Research Bulletin

Research Bulletin

Volume XXI Spring/Summer 2016 Volume XXI • Number 1 • Number 1 Research Institute for Waldorf Education

RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR WALDORF PUBLICATIONS at the RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR WALDORF EDUCATION 38 Main Street Chatham, NY 12037 EDUCATIONWaldorf